The Apostle Paul once wrote that he could see things 'through a glass, darkly'. He was trying, I feel, to capture what it felt like to see things, but without complete clarity. And I know what he meant, because this week, when I should have been over in Gdansk to speak at the European Distance and E-learning Network (EDEN) Conference, I am sat at home recuperating after keyhole surgery. As I have previously written, EDEN is one of my favourite annual events, and I have attended at least 7 over the last 10 years or so. It is a delightful meeting place for e-learning professionals and academics, and although the quality of the presentations can be something of a curate's egg at times, a certain honesty and resilience pervade the proceedings. The settings are always grand, and the company is erudite and entertaining. It is quite a melting pot of ideas, and a number of notable trans-national collaborations have been spawned there over the years. But I have to follow the event remotely, from my sitting room, using participatory media this year. I am following the conference blog which I am happy to see is this year carrying some interesting video clips that people have thoughtfully posted up. These give a sense of participation - almost a social presence, without actually being there. But it is all a little like looking through the keyhole (if I can use that term in two different ways in the same post). You aren't there, and what you can see and apprehend is limited due to the distance and lack of presence. The media can ameloriate some of the barriers, but it also imposes constraints.
Twitter may be the best participatory media as a conference backchannel, and I have previously eulogised over its affordances in this area. I feel that it has more immediacy than blogging even with video clips embedded. This is because it provides a constant stream of snapshots (some of which really are snapshots thanks to Twitpic et al) and you can respond in kind, and enjoy almost synchronous dialogue even though you are not physically present. Also, the limit of 140 characters encourages accuracy .... so brevity forces clarity. We worked this well at the recent Plymouth e-Learning Conference, trending in at number 3 at one point due to the high volume of tweets. Many people who couldn't attend reported that it was the next best thing to being there. Twitter provided quite a large keyhole to look through, in fact.
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5 comments:
I wonder if we can just rely on the community to twitter about conferences?
In a recent blog post of mine I discussed this very issue and thought about the role of social reporters at conferences to engage with the community both at the conference and the wider interested community.
At PeLC09 we were lucky that there was a lot of people using and willing to use Twitter, but can conferences rely on that if they want to engage their delegates and the community?
James
Following some conferences and seminars remotely would have been very difficult for me if there wasn't Twitter and Tweeple willing to share, post tweets and reply to some questions very kindly! I am very new on Twitter (Only since March 2009!) but I am learning everyday a little more about it and about so many other fields of interests with "my tweeple" :) What I like most is the instant interaction and ideas spreading!
@jamesclay Lately, I was very excited to follow a conference on eLearning via Twitter but then the tweets were very rare during the conference and people (most of them) posted tweets after the conference saying how great the event was! Nobody reported bad internet connexions or limited access (is it may happen in any conference in any country!), so I had the feeling it was linked to the huge number of participants rather interested in getting together with community members at the conference and not on Twitter...
So what are the incentives for social media use and spreading?!
Chahira
I'm interested in the role of social reporters - I'll be checking out James' blog post after this.
I've yet to follow a conference remotely on twitter. I'll get to test how it works at the RSC SW summer conference which I can't attend.
You lot better tweet, blog and stream!!!
The summer EDEN conference always clashes with our exam boards, and so I have never attended.
Perhaps a lot of the Twitters are also tethered to their home institutions?
I am a midwife and we have a big international conference coming up in 2 years. I would like to develop up a proposal to make to the conference organisers about how they can incorporate technology into the conference proceedings so that those of use who are unable to attend can have some way of participating. Clearly, Twitter is one way of doing it. The challenge for me is to encourage midwives to get into Twitter (in the next 2 years) so they can join in the proceedings.
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