Hit-and-run recapsulets…

Three fairly intense events in the last week, on top of the usual work stuff (busier than usual)… but people have been asking how things went, so I’ll toss up yet another self-absorbed progress report. I am looking forward to spewing some verbiage about what other people are up to soon…

My fears aside, the IT4BC talk went OK — I certainly can’t complain about my reception. But I was thrown off-course early, when I asked the room of approximately 250 educational IT professionals if they had heard of learning objects… and I got two hands up. SInce I had more or less structured my narrative as a contrast between my experiences pushing LOs and what I’ve learned since, my whole approach was imperiled. I should have cut the LO stuff short and moved on, but instead I panicked and went into greater detail to try and explain what happened, using increasingly hyperbolic and simplified language. I think things got better toward the end.

My learning from this session: while it’s nice to target a talk to your audience, it is pointless to anticipate what they know.

Earlier this week I was in Edmonton for the Canadian E-Learning Conference. I gave a pre-conference workshop on the usual stuff. This one was more fun than I expected. I had a great room, a full house ready to learn and try new things. What was especially gratifying was that people were especially keen to learn more about RSS and how syndication might support distributed approaches to learning and publishing. I’m used to having a tough sell getting people interested in that side of the equation, so their contribution to the session was gratifying.

I enjoyed a lunch with Michael Hotrum (first meeting) and then I was off to Bourbon Street at the West Edmonton Mall to meet D’Arcy, and man it was just like being back in the French Quarter. I haven’t had such an authentic immersive experience since eating at Taco Bell. I signed up for this gig because it offered the chance to hang out and work with D’Arcy, and as ever it was an absolute blast. D’Arcy has written a post on our process, he did most of all of the heavy lifting in making the video clips flow together smoothly. My assessment was that we got a mixed but acceptable audience reaction, some of the videos (like Spare Me My Life) bombed big time, others (like Sir Ken Robinson’s TED talk) really seemed to connect with people.

Next week I am part of a symposium at Ed-Media here in Vancouver with some true heavy hitters, most of whom I’ll be meeting for the first time. Updates pending…

About Brian

I am a Strategist and Discoordinator with UBC's Centre for Teaching, Learning and Technology. My main blogging space is Abject Learning, and I sporadically update a short bio with publications and presentations over there as well...
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13 Responses to Hit-and-run recapsulets…

  1. as always, any chance to play with Brian is a total blast. any time, my friend. any place.

  2. Thanks for taking time out from your hectic schedule to attend my town hall talk AND ask the first question.

  3. The success of conferences can be assessed on many indicators – but the most important indicator is whether you connect – with content or people. And this conference was a success for me because I connected with those people I’ve already grown to respect through their blogs and shared resources – namely people like D’arcy and you Brian. It was great to meet you both and let’s not forget that high talk about the Festival Express.

  4. Only *two* raised their hands? Boy, that’s, ah, weird. I can imagine how disorientating that would be.

    Looking forward to whatever episodes of The Brian Lamb Experience I can snag next week –

  5. Brian says:

    D’Arcy — yay!

    Phillip — great session, congratulations! Though I think it was Duncan who got the first question in.

    Michael — again, a pleasure to meet you. And I haven’t forgotten the heady talk.

    Bryan — am very much looking forward to seeing you, natch.

  6. Lisa says:

    Which symposium will you be part of at Ed-Media?

  7. Brian says:

    Hi Lisa (sorry if you had to ask twice!),

    Sebastian Fiedler has assembled a group of seven or eight of us (including Bryan, above) for a symposium on centralised vs. distributed approaches for Ed-media… I think we go from 2:45-5 on Tuesday. Looking forward to meeting you!

  8. Lisa says:

    Thanks! I hope to make it, at least for the second part. Looking forward to meeting you also — I went to Sebastian’s blog and it looks like fun.

  9. sounds like tuesday will be fun! you could try dividing the audience into separate camps, and make them fight for centralized or decentalized designs…

  10. Lisa says:

    Oh no, D’Arcy! If I want that kind of fight, I’d just go to work rather than the conference. 😉

  11. Brian says:

    Lisa – D’Arcy is making a reference to a session we did with Alan Levine a few years ago: http://careo.elearning.ubc.ca/smallpieces

    D’Arcy – the big difference is that from what I gather, nobody wants to take the side of centralization, even in fun! Then again, there doesn’t seem to be any shortage of people pushing the big insitutional systems in the wider world.

  12. Lisa says:

    Brian, I was joking only because I am a strong decentralizer in a college full of centralizers myself — thanks for the link!

    I arrived too late today to attend the Fiedler session after all that (ugh) but will seek you out soon! Abject apologies are in order, I’m sure….

  13. Brian says:

    Sorry to have missed you Lisa. Hopefully we’ll chat sometime soon…

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