IT @ ISM Tech Think Blog

That’s right - last night! I put the kids to bed, brewed some of Starbucks’ finest for my wife and myself, got out a packet of Tim Tams and then got comfy in my softest lounge chair. And then I went to a conference. No need for a visa, no airport checkins, and it didn’t cost me a single centavo - basically, it was all the flavour but none of the CO2 emissions (talk about going green!). No taxis, no need for an ironed shirt. I may even attend the next session from my bathtub!

Okay, you may not be a big fan of charades, so I’ll get to the point and explain. The 2007 K-12 Online conference started last night, and it was pretty cool, I have to say. Different from a regular conference, given the online, part-synchronous, part-asynchronous format, but this difference was actually very appropriate given the topic of the pre-conference keynote. It was delivered by David Warlick, and the title was “Inventing the new boundaries”. He talked about (and I paraphrase):

the ways in which technology is completely removing the traditional boundaries within which classrooms exist and operate. Compared to the childhoods of today’s teachers, it’s like our students have tentacles allowing them to remain invisibly connected to their networks at all times, seeing and reaching through walls, communicating silently and instantaneously, using chat, IM, texting, social networks, games… That is, until they enter the classroom of a fairly traditional teacher, where their tentacles are chopped off and they’re forced to be the kind of students the teacher wants to teach, rather than the kind of students they actually are…

I’ll stop there. In selecting what to quote, I’m obviously inserting my own bias, and I don’t know that I’m doing David’s presentation justice, really… Why don’t you just listen or watch for yourself? Just download the audio version or the video version.

So how does this conference work, anyway?

Well, it all kicked off at 8:00PM (Manila time), when David’s presentation was made available for downloading. A bunch of educators from around the world logged into a chatroom set up for this event, and we were all simultaneously watching the presentation and chatting about it. The chatroom is open for 24 hours, and the transcript will be made available online afterwards. Many are also blogging about it, and there’s a wiki devoted to the conference.

I guess it’s almost part conference, part online university. At regular conferences and workshops, I often reach a point of saturation about halfway through the second day, where I’m no longer able to take in all the information and almost start to panic as I realize I’m missing so much valuable learning. Therefore, I love the fact that this conference is spread out over two weeks, giving me time to digest before being expected to discuss intelligently with others. For example, following on from yesterday’s keynote, there will be a “fireside chat” session tonight where David will take part in the discussion, and people will have had time to watch the presentation again (and again) and reflect on it properly. As for all the ensuing blog reactions, people can use Technorati to find or subscribe to any and all blog posts throughout the entire blogosphere tagged with “k12online07″ and “k12online07pc” (’pc’ for pre-conference), turning this into a truly global conversation. There is even a wiki page set up that aggregates all of these blog posts about the conference. Obviously, there is a slight danger of information overload here…
This was just the pre-conference keynote, and the main conference won’t be starting until next Monday. There will be four sessions daily for almost two weeks, with keynotes and chat sessions in the following strands: “Classroom 2.0″, “New Tools”, “Professional Learning Networks” and “Obstacles to Opportunities”, so people can pick and choose the sessions most pertinent to them. However, every single presentation will remain available as downloads, so if you really want to, you can listen to all of them and then post responses online at your own leisure. The conversations will go on for weeks to come after the conference is formally over…

I recommend this to anyone interested in the future of education in this rapidly changing digital landscape. If any of you ISM’ers would like to give this a whirl, but are unsure about the technicalities of listening in or joining the conversation, just shoot me an email and I’ll help you get set up.