For a fairly small conference, TLt 2010 has some pretty impressive keynotes.
Monday evening kicked off with Scott Leslie. Scott has been someone I’ve followed online for a number of years so it’s always a treat to be able to connect face to face. Scott’s talk on becoming a networked learner was certainly not filled with new ideas for me but a message that I know continues to be needed for many educators in this province. A couple of key ideas did resonate for me, paraphrased somewhat:
“Learning that used to be centered around proximity is now being centered around affinity”
“If you believe your institution is offering has a market on expertise what are you saying about every other place of learning”
“Institutions need to realize they are not only there to offer learning to their own students but have a larger responsibility of learning for all”
I had not heard David Wiley speak live. I’ve been quite aware of his work and was looking forward to hearing him. If you’ve not heard David before, check out his recent TEDx talk. David eloquently shared on openness and addressed head on the barriers and resistance to openness. I couldn’t imagine anyone being able to argue intelligently against his ideas. I’m sure there are those who might try but his ideas are pretty rock solid. Paraphrased once again:
“According to copyright law, a crayon drawing by a 5 year old and the movie Avatar enjoy equal protection”
“Openness is about overcoming your inner 2 year old. It’s mine! No you can’t have it!”
No question, I’ll be using many of David’s ideas in the future.
The concurrent sessions were 30 minutes sessions where presenters were encourage to leave time for questions and discussions. I have to say this is a challenging format and I’m not sure presenters and participants handled this all that well. 15-20 minutes is not really enough time to set the stage for most topics. Given the challenge of creating a compelling TED talk, that’s about the only presentation format that may have worked. By the time introductions and context were given, actual content was shortchanged. Even if it wasn’t 15 minutes to have meaningful conversation is also almost impossible. I think back to Educon where conversations were the order of the day but sessions were 90 minutes.
The afternoon panel discussion did offer some greatness. Jay Wilson shared about his pre-service teacher courses. He talked about creating opportunities for his students to have success and how he supports them with their passions. Throughout his talk it was evident his genuine interest in his students and love of teaching make him an outstanding educator which by the way the University of Saskatchewan agrees.
The cracker barrel sessions are a great model to spark conversations. 20 minutes on a given topic with 5-6 people. The topic I sat in on was Information Overload. I immediately gave it my best Shirky take and was quickly challenged by some nursing instructors who argued that the demand on knowledge for nurses is getting overwhelming. It was worthwhile talk.
Wednesday’s keynote from Harold Jarche was a great historical and current argument for social learning and networking as shifting hierarchy in the workplace. From favorite quote:
“Enhanced serendipity is the emergent result from people involved in networks”.
This conference was a cut above many for the following reasons:
- The keynotes talks all fit a theme.
- Each keynote was followed by question and answer. Some great and challenging questions.
- The keynotes were fully participating in the conference. They attended the concurrents, participated fully and stayed till the end. Nothing endears a keynote more than by hanging around and demonstrating yourself as a learner.
- You’ve never seen a better wine and cheese food selection.
Although TLt is a higher education conference, discussions of learning, teacher and school aren’t much different.
Well summarized, Dean. It was a very good conference, all keynotes were excellent. Session time was short … but ‘sweet’. Food was great. Good people to network with – and good to meet you in person, too!
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Is there a typo in the first quote? ““Learning that used to be centered around proximity is not being centered around affinity” seems like it ought to read “now” instead of “not”?
That 15-20 minutes given to presenters with a dedicated Q&A is more than presenters had at the recent Science of Team Science conference hosted by Northwestern University’s Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute. Each presenter-panelist had 12 minutes and Q&A was taken en masse at the end. The thing is, this conference style is a variations on the theme of traditional, banking-style education, where the expert (teacher or presenter) delivers knowledge in a didactic manner to students/conference members presumedly in need.
A twitter team tracked the Science of Team Science conference in a mode I’ve been thinking of as a kind of collective ethnography, creating a record of the discourse and dynamics that occurred during the event. Members of the team are continuing to tweet, and two of us blogged. In retrospect, Cameron Norman argues, “It’s time to bring design into [the] conversation.” Hear hear, I’m all for that! The thing is that it is very hard to pay attention to process and content simultaneously. We can notice, however, how traditional conference structure fail to enable the spontaneous generation of collective wisdom, and begin to imagine creative ways to tinker with the social structure so that “meaningful conversations” are not something we find lacking but are the main substance of the interaction.
I’m intrigued by the “cracker barrel” discussions…. I can imagine them as a starting point which could be woven into more dynamic presentations? Not to say any of the presentations at the STS conference or TLt weren’t engaging, but rather to highlight the potential for more responsive and relational talks rather than emphasizing those prepared in advance. One thing about the program at STS was a beautiful thematic development from panel-to-panel, which worked very well on the historical and contemporary aspects, even the emerging ones, but then there is this dang thing about application. Maybe the application is hard to talk about because we haven’t yet paid enough attention to how we’re already doing it? (The “it” I’m referring to is “team science” but it could as easily be the “teaching/learning/use of technology” in TLt.)
Coming across these blogposts makes me wonder how many conferences have occurred this spring with similar themes, and what we might do to connect them up, in some kind of uber-collaborate way.
Thanks Stephanie, yes it was a typo, now fixed.
Your idea about the cracker barrel sessions as a lead up is great. Of course the issue is planning and designing appropriately in a short time. I’ve also thought about a “linkable” conference where keynotes presentations linked directly to concurrents so that for example if a keynote mentioned a concept, it would be addressed in more detail in a concurrent session.
Also connecting conferences and themes around broad topics of learning is intriguing and one I’d love to participate in. As I eluded to, my discussion with nursing instructors was fascinating although I know nothing about nursing.
Dean,
I agree that it is hard to feel like the presentation was as valuable as it could be when the content is forced into such a little time slot. I imagine this must be a hard decision for the conference organizers because they want everyone to present, and they need to fit them all in. Although short 20-1/2 hour presentations are hard, I think the question and answer time afterwards is invaluable and I have been in very few seminars that they actually do this. Sounds like you had a good time!
.-= Danielle Maley´s last blog ..Five Ways to Get Featured on Freshly Pressed =-.
Hi Danielle and Dean,
You’re both right of course – it is hard to fit everyone in to a brief timeframe and the Q&A is definitely a step in the interactive direction. I’m just saying I think we can do better!
The sticky part is that attempting to improve means experimenting with formats that are unfamiliar and thus feel risky. The underlying question regards how much uncertainty we can trust each other to work through, together, in circumstances that many of us probably feel have pretty high stakes.
I like the cracker barrel idea because if you got people invested in conversations among small groups at the beginning, you might be able to foster a more concerted effort at … some tangible task or goal that the conference organizers & participants want to achieve overall. Dean’s ‘spillover’ idea is intriguing (I can’t wrap my head around them being concurrent?) – with a bit of structure organizers might be able to promote a kind of organic self-organization that facilitates generating a collective (rather than an aggregative) product.
Cameron Norman and I have continued to talk after the Science of Team Science at his blog, Censemaking. The current topic involves social architecture – to what extent do organizers and participants
a) recognize the ‘culture’ we enact during conferences,
b) identify the predictable (ritual) elements of this culture,
c) subject the expected outcomes to critique, and
d) use this critique in an evaluative way to
e) make intentional design changes in order to
f) generate more desirable outcomes?
Obviously I am assuming there is more potential in these gatherings than is currently being used, and specifically I believe there is more focus, energy, and attention that could be given to building capacity and skills for collective problem-solving. I keep emphasizing collective because it seems obvious that the big problems aren’t going to magically go away. I’m referring to the “wicked” ones that affect us all even if only indirectly through, for instance, fear of random violence (e.g., terrorism) or natural disaster (e.g., effects of climate change).
All of our smarts gotta be good enough to tackle this stuff!
.-= Stephanie Jo Kent´s last blog ..reading the demon: simultaneous interpretation and the in-between =-.
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I have to have Scott Leslie’s shirt. (sorry, no value other than for fun)