We are both very pleased to be asked to sit on the technology panel at the New Zealand Communications Conference in Hamilton this year. We’ll be talking about Web 2.0 and applications for teaching and learning.

And talking of Web 2.0 and related matters….I guess we’ve all caught up with the story about divorce, prostitution in SL and the interface with reality. Interesting times and a story that has provoked many a discussion about multiple identities the nature of marriage and reality. If we had time we’d love to start our PHD about the nature of identity and the web. But we won’t. Yet.

Been dipping into a great book by Liz Wells called Photography: A critical introduction seems to cover Foucault, Barthes and many more and takes a postmodernist approach. More when I read more. Like it a lot.

In NZ there’s lot of talk about Second Life and its abilities and functionality for learning and teaching. There’s a BIG project underway called SLENZ which aims to develop and explore some material for teaching and learning opportunities in SL. We’re all getting excited about using it…and there are some interesting projects proposals of which I’ve seen one or two. Had a nice session yesterday with fellow SLers Isa, DanP, Lindis and Enomec……I like the collaborative and sharing nature of it and it reminds me of the old hippie days when we thought it was good to share, give and support. Hmmmm seemed to go during the 1990s so it’s good to see that philosophy return to education. Maybe the postbabyboomer generation has something to offer after all (that’s irony, of course they do).

Looks good. It’s about digital memories and it’s in Austria….

Digital Memories

Sure is conference season in New Zealand…..and it was great to see the old crowd at the e-fest conference in Auckland this year. Lots about social networking and lovely to meet Vanessa James and see the work she had done on the Coromandel Community Digital Storytelling Project.

You can find the e-fest information here: http://efestnz.blogspot.com/…some good stuff….. a lot of listening and being talked at this year…..but then it’s interesting to catch up. Best? Networking.

If you’ve arrived here after attending the e-engage your community conference in Wellington we hope you found our digital storytelling workshop useful. Feel free to leave any feedback here. Don’t forget to visit the digital storytelling course and we look forward to you sharing your stories with us.

After kicking off another digital storytelling workshop last night the participants left inspired, but tempered by the realisation that telling their story in 250 words may not be a simple task. So it seemed appropriate that I should share this Mark Twain quote:

“I didn’t have the time to write
a short letter,
so I wrote a long one instead.”

The quote begins Rajesh Setty’s ChangeThis manifesto on mini sagas, stories told in exactly 50 words. As Daniel Meadows is fond of saying “contraints define the form…” I’m reminded of Hemmingway’s haunting six word story: For sale: baby shoes, never worn.

Two more worth noting: Learning2.008 with Alan Levine and George Siemens as two of the many speakers of note. I could link you to their names, or you could find out about them using the Ning link above. More and more conference hosts are using Ning to advertise their conferences.

E-fest this year in in Auckland (gosh moved away from Welly) on 8-10th September. Theme is about connections: learners, education, organisations and content. Always good to go and hear/see what’s happening in Aotearoa, and having been involved in some projects that don’t seem to get shared about, I’d be keen to get talking about how we can get sharing better…..

ascilite is in Melbourne this year and its theme is ” Hello! Where are you in the landscape of educational technology”….

While I’m still awake: there are difficulties about getting up to go to a conference - you don’t read the list of activities properly, so thinking I was on later event to visit Harlem (yes I did read the pre-conference material) I went back to bed after the opening speech. Yup! I missed Harlem but did get to walk around by myself. There were problems getting into SL and then problems teleporting (maybe too many people teleporting at once?) so I was late to very event then had trouble finding everyone. Sigh. I did get to eat some pork and vegetables though. Great organisation -imagine everyone at the beginning trying to sort out who they were and where they were going. Not all audio worked for everyone.

So - it did seem that Harlem was working as a teaching space and the opening event where Bryan Mnemonic spoke made it all sound really interesting. He stressed the research aspect of it and the assessments students are asked to complete. The Lincoln island was interesting - clearly well researched although I gather some sims were ‘out of time’. At the end-of-conference panel several questions were asked about assessments and collaboration. The general response was that students collaborate better in SL than RL and are energised by it, while one comment was that since people worked in project teams, SL replicated RL.

One of the major issues seems to be that the SL is mature and the audience educators are trying to reach are under 18. I gather some historical worlds have been created in Teen SL.

It was an interesting conference - I’ll write more detailed notes if anyone is interested. There is another conference on August 4th and August 6th - looking at using literature in SL. Might be worth investigating.

I’ll updated this with links- after another coffee. Meantime here’s Iphi at the back as usual.

An interesting conference to attend perhaps. It’s called Stepping Into History and it’s being held in Second Life.

I’m looking forward to being in Harlem in the 1920s and meeting Abe Lincoln (not not in Harlem-it’s another choice). Gosh I think it’s dress appropriately so I can see more SL shopping coming up. Unfortunately for Kiwis it starts at something like 3.00 am and goes to about 10.00 am……on Wednesday.

It seemed somehow necessary to note today’s important remembrance. It was of course Bastion Point ‘day’. Thirty years! Thirty years!

It was great to watch Maori TV last night (the only media apart from some news items in mainstream today) and the unravellings of the stories. Merata Mita’s great documentary, and people telling their stories made for intriguing and compulsive viewing. They certainly do it ‘good’ on Maori TV!

It’s interesting to ask ourselves how much have we all changed? Is there a difference? Most would say ‘yes’ it’s better but there are still disturbing stories of alienation, violence and its partner poverty.

Still a wee way to go?

Perhaps that’s another story.