2006 December (2)

Online Conference on Online Facilitation December 13, 2006

Posted by Andy Roberts in : distributed research, Community, online facilitation, Wiki , add a comment

Some disillusion with academic conferences surfaced in recent discussions, together with the idea of unconferences, DIY and open space events. Now on the onlinefacilitation yahoogroup the idea of holding an online conference about online facilitation seems to be gaining enough groundswell of support to actually take place.

Nothing is set in stone yet, but a time horizon of 3 or 4 weeks in January/February 2007, free registration, simple platform with discussion space and wiki space seem favoured. So far nobody has tried to turn the online conference into a series of telephone calls, so I’ll be committing myself to playing an active role. The planning stage is taking place on Nancy White’s wikispace so there’s still time to help shape the future event if you are interested in collaborative decision making, and that would be the place to keep informed of developments. See you next year.

Here is the link to follow: onlinefacilitation » Online Conference on Online Facilitation

Mirror neurons online December 12, 2006

Posted by Andy Roberts in : distributed research, Community , 1 comment so far

You’ve probably heard of mirror neurons by now. But do you they they are applicable in an online environment? Or do you have to be in proximity or at least have a visual stimulus before they will fire up and engender empathy or other related feelings.

The discussion started up on the onlinefacilitation yahoogroup and I copied my contribution to a wiki page because it needs rephrasing sometime but there’s also a related discussion on the valuenetworks googlegroup which I nearly missed.

The problem with the kind of biological research necessary to learn more about this subject is that it would probably require somebody to sit at a computer chacking their egroups and engaging in distributed discourse whilst having electrodes strapped to the appropriate part of their brain. Could be a little distracting, but I suppose you’d get used to it after a few days.

Another possibility which is already well underway by all accounts, would be to collect qualitative data from participants of a purely text based community after a few ventures into a 3d graphical medium such as Secondlife. Do some of them report an improvement in rapport? What about those who don’t - are they getting it from text anyway?

2006 Edublog awards - classroom displays blog nominated December 9, 2006

Posted by Andy Roberts in : edublog , 3comments

I’m really pleased that one of my nominations has made it into this year’s Edublog awards. Linda Hartley’s popular classroom displays Blog is one of only four finalists in the “best audio/visual blog” category, up against educator podcasters:

Nominations for Best Audio and/or Visual Blog 2006 | The Edublog Awards

Voting closes midnight GMT Saturday 16 December 2006, which leaves you only a week to carefully peruse all of the fine selection of blogs and record one vote for each category you might be interested in.

My rationale for nominating the classroom displays Blog :

This lovely blog together with its Flickr group has served to provide children and teachers with a worldwide audience for their large and original visual creations which would otherwise only be stuck on a wall and destroyed after a few weeks. The blog archive is also used as a source of inspiration.

update: The category link was down for a few hours on Saturday so some people were not able to vote, but it’s back up again now.

Tornado Hits London December 7, 2006

Posted by Andy Roberts in : London , 3comments

Severe weather hits London and thisislocallondon provides news with comments

A FREAK tornado ripped through a residential area of the capital today, tearing apart buildings and injuring six people.

The fleeting storm ripped tiles off roofs, pulled down fences and shattered windows

I didn’t see the black cloud from where I was in South London but did witness sudden gusts of high wind accompanied by hailstones which temporarily formed into mini blizzards on the roof tiles.

BBC news pictures

Images from Flickr

Future uncertain for Ultralab research centre December 5, 2006

Posted by Andy Roberts in : edublog , add a comment

There are fears for the future of the UK’s best-known research centre for learning technologies, Ultralab, run by director Richard Millwood. The organisation is currently undergoing restructuring that, it is thought, will lead to its downsizing. No one was available for comment this week and an announcement of redundancies is expected next week.

from Merlin John Online

Venezuela: Chavez re-elected for a third term December 5, 2006

Posted by Andy Roberts in : politics , add a comment

Tony Saunois provides an analysis and perspectives for the third term of a Hugo Chavez presidency.

Venezuela: Chavez re-elected for a third term
In contrast to any other President or head of state in the world today, Hugo Chávez, has been re-elected for a third term by a landslide.

In acknowledging his victory Chávez promised to develop the “Bolivarian and Socialist revolution”.