As I am preparing for the first session of the conference today, I have been doing a lot of thinking about best practices for liveblogging, many of which I am learning while engaging in this process. I will combine whatever I learn into a single list at the end of this research.
- Have an extension cord. I always used to carry one in my computer bag, a long one with multiple plugs at the end. I removed this since it was too heavy, so will have to take time during our break to go buy a new, lighter one.
- Make sure there is full, long-charged battery. As I learned from our Welcome session that I am preparing for, there may be locations (such as this auditorium) that do not have many outlets. Thus, do not count on having a power source.
- WiFi is not ubiquitous. While we like to hope and even think that wireless access is open and available in every conference, this is still not a reality.
- Have a camera with a cord to connect to the computer. While a camera is very useful, traveling to the venue with its cord to be able to synch the images, upload to the website or a service such as Flickr, will save lots of time later in the day adding these and then reposting the entries.
- Consider what to say while engaging in liveblogging if asked. I learned last night, when I first mentioned this project to a few colleagues at the reception, some of them looked quizically. One even mentioned that academics would not be interested in this work since they like to have their writing refined and polished before it is made public. While refining and polishing is something that is useful for the tenure review process, I responded that this is a research project in itself, and I am more concerned that I capture the data (information from the sessions) as it happens, since the polishing and refinement (which in the case of blogging means writing and rewriting for permanent posting) is something that may not be possible with this endeavor, from a practical perspective as well as from a data-gathering perspective in this case. As a side-point, this same person asked a practical question about how will somebody find this research. While the short answer is that it is amazing how people find blog entries, my intention is to present my findings at a conference next year and then publish from this experience, which will in turn make this more public.
- Use an offline blog editor. If at all possible, determine which sessions will be attended and then create basic postings for each that list the sessions / speakers for each one. This will allow for each entried to have a simple template, or home, for when things begin. Remember to adjust the times to the actual sessions.
- Adjust the laptop computer time if this is in another time zone. This will allow for accurate time stamping for the posts.
- Consider whether to use a camera to add to the visual elements, or not
Ahh, the opening is beginning.
I arrived in Halifax today, but was unable to make it to any of the presentations of the GLBTQ Preconference, which I wanted to attend but was unable to due to my plane and travel schedule. I was able to see Julie Gedro of Empire State College, who is a colleague of mine for several years now through AHRD and AERC and whose passion and energy in her teaching and research inspire me when I face my own academic hurdles. With her I met Tonette Rocco who is at Florida International University and is the Editor of New Horizons in Adult Education and Human Resource Development. was reintroduced to David Brightman, the editor at Jossey-Bass who I met last year and who supports the work and efforts of many of the scholars who attend this conference and help to make it happen. I then bumped into Andre Grace, the coordinator of the preconference / president of CASAE / supporter and encourager of my own preconference presentation last year, who invited me to one of the professor’s who spoke today who was having a gathering at his home here in Halifax.
What a wonderful way to start the conference itself. I did not have any wine or cheese or food or drink; but to be around some of these people again lifts my spirits and makes me both look forward to tomorrow as well as be thankful I was able to make it here again this year. I wonder who else I will see tomorrow, both from the past as well as new into the future. Ahhh, the ideas and thoughts that await. Interesting way to begin a research project!
I have started my trip to Halifax for the AERC 2007 conference. While I am presenting a paper there (see my post yesterday), this time my conference experience will be different from previous ones. The major difference is that I plan to live blog this conference, or at least my experiences at this conference, as part of a research project I am working on.
There are a few issues I need to mention and begin discussing at the outset. Firstly, live blogging is a relatively new concept. There is little research around it thus far (I hope to begin changing that). There are even different names for this: live blogging, live-blogging, and liveblogging–I have used all three of them in different situations, and plan to use the term as a single word as per the model of the great community and educationally-oriented blogger, Beth Kanter (though even she uses it with one and two words in different places). There is not a common understanding of what its purpose is–Seth Godin, a favorite author and speaker of mine, mused recently about his experiences presenting while many audience members were lost in their own blogging about their immediate personal experiences during a presentation. Christian Long has some interesting things to say about it. To expedite this, it appears a number of serious bloggers use offline blog editors (programs) so that things can be written even without a direct connection to the blog itself and then posted later. This also allows for a smoother writing–I am using ecto for this, and have already found a few features I like more (it automatically creates Technorati tags) as well as less (it does not automatically detect and submit trackbacks) than using the web interface of Movable Type itself.
With all these unresolved issues to face before I even arrive in Halifax itself (I am writing this while waiting at Newark Airport), it seems to me that this medium is still in its early stages. Hmmm, early stages for both practitioners as well as researchers. Seems like a ripe place to begin my practitioner research then, especially at this friendly and academic adult education conference.
Technorati Tags: Beth Kanter, live blogging, liveblogging, live-blogging, Seth Godin
Getting packed and ready to leave to travel to Halifax, Nova Scotia to present a paper I wrote with a colleague, Robin Yap, at AERC2007. The paper, Critical HRD—Need for Emergence of Critters in Adult Education, is available online, as are all the peer-reviewed papers that will be presented there. Finishing our presentation, and considering making a small sign for my laptop alerting people to the fact that I will be live blogging the conference.
This is not needed, but it may raise awareness of this research project I am undertaking and may in fact help bridge the gap between research and practice.
Technorati Tags: Adult Education Research Conference, AERC, AERC2007
I have been working on a paper about some of the high-level philosophical thoughts of Michel Foucault and Herbert Marcuse. Foucault’s concept of discipline and
punishment, in light of power residing within a judge of normality, and Marcuse’s work of repressive tolerance and how tolerance often represses diversity rather than increases and supports it.
Both of these thinkers have struck me recently, and I am now just trying to understand them enough to be able to explain their contributions. 
I have read some of both of their works, and will have to read and re-read them more, since on the surface
they are both easy, yet their words in fact challenge much of our contemporary society.
Technorati Tags: Michel Foucault, Herbert Marcuse
This is why I am a qualitative researcher, as so nicely stated in today’s Dilbert. Click it to see the full-size.
