Today I arrived in London’s Heathrow Airport to then make my way to Oxford for the 8th International Conference on Human Resource Development Research and Practice across Europe, sponsored by Oxford Brookes University and held at The Oxford Hotel. With the time change and all the travel, I missed the opening keynote since I collapsed in the room and caught up on a little sleep. At least I made it to the Welcome Reception where I had a nice chat with Ken Bartlett from the University of Minnesota and the editor of Advances in Development Human Resources (ADHR), one of the journals sponsored by the Academy of HRD. I also spoke briefly with Darlene Russ-Eft, a colleague and co-presenter with my research-partner Robin Yap, as well as with Gary McLean, whose work I have read but whom I had not previously met.

Another conference, another nice group of dedicated professionals.

Technorati Tags: ahrd, ahrdoxford2007, globalisation, glocalisation

I have given a lot of consideration to what worked and what did not work when I liveblogged the AERC conference two weeks ago. Gathering these best practices together, the following is my working list of liveblogging best practices. I will test this list next week, when I travel to Oxford to present at the 8th International Conference on Human Resource Development Research & Practice across Europe.

Liveblogging Best Practices

1. Have an extension cord. You never know how far away the outlet is.
2. Plan on there NOT being any wireless Internet access. Regardless of what may be expected or promised you never know what may happen with it, who may be downloading every DVD ever made and clogging the network in the process, and how even the most stable technology fails when we may need it most (not to mention when the access is "free" after a daily credit card mayment).
3. Use an offline blogging program. I am using Ecto for this here. I also tried ScribeFire for Firefox, but I could not get the image uploading FTP to work to save me, and their help pages were not too helpful. I do not mind paying developers for their work, and think those who created Ecto certainly deserve what I paid them for what they delivered. As I am about to migrate from XP to Vista, it is important to check compatibility (such as with Macs) and have a freely-available trial period.
4. Have a fully-charged battery. This goes without saying, but often the unstated is forgotten or assumed!
5. Create entry shells prior to the sessions. This way, you are assured to have the correct names of the sessions and the spelling of the participants for each entry.
6. Adjust the computer time to the local time. I have blogged around the world, and prefer to capture the sessions in the real time where I am.
7. Disclose what editing is done later. I consider myself a researcher-practitioner, and as such want full-disclosure of what I liveblog in real-time, as I conduct research with my entries as they are. These are real data, and as such it would be counter to the research process to go back and edit, spell-check, and otherwise clarify what happened at a previous time as the point of liveblogging is to capture the experiences in real-time. Of course, if I am able to spell-check and otherwise edit as I go, then that is another situation.
8. Distinguish between internal and external experiences. I am a constructivist qualitative researcher, and as such do not believe the researcher can separate himself or herself from the research experience. When I am liveblogging a conference, I find myself writing about what I see, hear, and experience, as well as the meaning-making that occurs in real-time. I cannot separate an objective happening from my perception of it, in that I do not believe there can be any objective meaning or experience apart from one who experiences it. In practical terms, I can record what I hear and what strikes me, but then I often begin to process the experience and add to the meaning-making event. This means that liveblogging makes me more than an active participant–the public-blogging and my ability to discuss my own thoughts and feelings of the event makes me in effect a co-presenter. [I think I will have to revisit this to try to develop it more]
9. Have a camera and its sync-cord. While picture taking while liveblogging may be icing on the cake, it does add a nice touch.
10. Have an international adapter/plug. Liveblogging in Canada, for example, uses the same plugs as in the US. The AHRD conference I am liveblogging in England means I have another device I have to carry with me if I want to plug in.
11. Consider a hyper-link policy. If I am liveblogging and there is wifi, then it is easy to add links to the presentations or papers or the people who present themselves, However, with the editing policy I listed above (see #7), determine how to find the links and add them, with full-disclosure, at some point in time. This allows the readers to try to see as much of what you experienced while it happens.

As this list is a work in process, I hope to add to it as new issues arise or as feedback and research dictates. [See revised entry on 7/25/07]

Technorati Tags: liveblogging, live-blogging, live-blogging, liveblogging best practices

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I have cast my net wide, and have spoken with a number of colleagues about the options for investigating this liveblogging research from last week’s AERC2007. I have had people mention auto ethnography, grounded theory, methods involved in the New Learning Initiative and in computer-mediated communication (CMC), Add a little bit about power and poisitonality within a conference, and there are some  juicy and appealing options.

While I am still processing what happened at the conference, there is another one (the last conference I am planning to attend this year) next week where I will be presenting. More about that one later.

Technorati Tags: aerc, aerc2007, autoethnography, computer-mediated communication, grounded theory, New Learning Initiative, adult education research conference

This is a slightly edited slideshowRobin and I presented last week at AERC. I liveblogged the conference when I was not presenting this. Next steps–further develop it for another round of resaerch!

Technorati Tags: aerc2007, critical hrd, critical management studies, aerc

I isolated the data I collected from the AERC2007 conference by giving all entries a similar category–Liveblogging AERC2007. Click the link, and you will be brought to all the entries done in real time while at the conference. Another way of accessing the same information is to select the "Liveblogging AERC2007" category listed under "Categories."

As the purpose of this research was to type and post my direct experiences while attending paper presentations and other parts of the academic conference, the notes and thoughts are unedited and seemingly arranged in a flow-of-consciousness. I hope to bring meaning to this through the research project itself.

Now that this can be more readily found, off to begin preparing for the data analysis.

Technorati Tags: AERC2007, liveblogging, research

Now back in New York, I again have Internet access and just uploaded the liveblogging entries I wrote while at AERC 2007 in Halifax, Nova Scotia. I now have some work to do with interpreting what is there, and expect to write and work extensively on them over the next two weeks. The liveblogging entries remain unedited, exactly as I wrote them while attending the conference.

I will need to consider a way to identify them on my blog as research data, rather than just other posts. This is my next step.

Technorati Tags: AERC2007, Halifax, liveblogging

Robin Grenier

Theoretical FOundations for adult learning. Is often anecdotal, and not with a theoretical base

idea for a roudtable is to have a discussion of what people see as possibilities

Create a triad — share with them an experience we have had as an adult at a museum or national park. Speak about this as a learning experience, what may have been learned

now, put on an adult facilitator / educator hat, and discuss what we have heard based on adult learning theiry, and how can you explain them from the adult ed persepctive

we then discussed this in triads

Robin then wrote some of these themes on the board, and then asked us how we could translate those into adult ed speak / lingo

Learning in Museums themese Robin heard from our groups

1. trnasformative
2. social-constructivism
3. spirituality
4. meaning making
5. perspectives
6. analogies
7. experiential learning
8. knowledge creation
9. tactile learning
10. emotionally laden
11. reflexive
12. critical consumption — who is controlling the learning and the context

then she asked us to discuss this

she has found her place in Canada

having a home place, where we can go back to again and again

emotionally-laden experiences

i began this project without knowing the methodoloy, as I had a limited area and time for data. Not sure what will learn from this, but that will be determined.

While working in our small groups / triads, I did not write here, as I thought that would not be conducive to a conversation we are having. Thus, I am blogging while I am a particpant who is not actively engaged in dialogue.

a participant in the room - knowledge in museums has been consturtced from / in various frameworks , and we have to be aware of that framework and how it was constructed.

Another person became a reflexive visitor

some museums are bevoin more critical, having multiple avenues of experiences and lenses

as a critical educator, can i take a crtitical lens to whatever museum / experience

I also need to find a better way to code the tags for these blogs. Futue resaerch elemtns

if we know we can have a converswation about this and what museums can do and their purpose, the next question is why don’t we.

somebody mentioned she is passionate about the British Museum, it is busier than ever especially since they removed the price.

It seems there is lifelong learning that is more established in Europe.

The question, is why aren’t we studying this any longer

one person specuulated that with the advent of technology, is it removing the social element of going to the museum

i am feeling like a researcher during this conversaiton

are museums still high-brow? They seem to have changed,  but if we are interested in seeing how an emotional and transformational experiences (eg in a Holocaust Museum). There are missed opportunites for authentic learning within museums. So, why are we missing out on this learning.

what can we do with a colleague or our own research agenda–how can i engage in scholarship to look at adult capacity to learn. We have a responsibility with adult educators to partner with musems. The museum educators have content expertise, but that does not necessarily meet the needs of adult visitors. How can we help adult visitors of multiple persoectvives and bring them in and help them to

Technorati Tags: AERC2007, liveblogging

Jeffrey Keefer & Robin Yap

I cannot livebog my own conference, so I will discuss it before I present and then recap what I learn during and after it.

This is really a delayed liveblog, as the Internet access is still not present in the building.

At the end in discussing the reesults, Julie Storburg-Walker suggested looking at the new learning work from learning at a conference. She suggested speaking with Colleen Weissner

we had abut 12 people, and there were a few pictures

Technorati Tags: AERC2007, liveblogging, Adult Education, aerc, Critical HRD, Critical Management Studies, live blogging, live-blogging, Critters

Nice lunch spread.

St. Louis , Missouri next year — here we come! The presentation they made makes St. Louis seem nicer than I remember when I was there many years ago,

The proposal for having the next conference in England sounds like a great idea, but the airfare costs may be prohibitive for many, especially as next year will be the 50th Anniversary.

I left the luncheon mid-way, since I wanted to tweak our presentation one last time.

Just met Patricia Cranton, who I studied with in an online class and who has been one of the people I have been looking to meet during the conference. She is most gracious and nice.

I then just met Rosemary Cafferella. Nice to meet her as well after using so many of her materials over the years.