Community and conferences
25-May-2006
permalinkThe second post on the Social Skills - Social Software conference.
I was trying to work out why I enjoyed this event so much.one thing was great people and great conversations- hi to Sebastion - both of them, John, Wilfred, Siegfried, Wolgang, Helen, Lee, Cecile and Veronica and her colleagues from Salzburg research. Sorry if I missed anyone out.
The food was good and the beer was free, that always helps.
But most important I think was a sense of community and common purpose which is missing at the big educational technology conferences. Sebastion and me talked about this. he said he now only goes to the small conferences. Why pay ridiculous amounts of money for events like Educa Berlin when you can gain eral ideas form events such as Salzburg.
The second point was the buzz about social software. Yes, I know there are some interesting pilot applications in the UK. But in Austria they seem to have taken social software to heart. Austria, like Germany, has been slow in implementing educational technology. The theory of uneven and combined development says that hen a country does adopt a technology is bypasses previous stages of development and jumps in at the cutting edge. Could it be that Austria is going to bypass those dire years of Learning management Systems and focus on new pedagogies using social software? It certainly looks possible.
One last point about the Salzburg conference. It was amazingly well organised. And Veronica seemed so calm. I wish I could do that.
Technorati Tags: describing knowledge, e-portfolios, social software
