Today I attended a conference and participated in a open forum discussion about Personal Learning Networks. This session was led by David Warlick and was held in North Carolina. The awesome thing is I attended and participated in this conference session from my desk in Goodhue, MN.
I first was made aware of this session by checking my Twitter account. David Warlick had just posted on Twitter that he was streaming his session on Ustream and invited other Twitterbugs to join. I clicked on the link and joined the session. In the session he placed an open invitation to all those attending the session virtually to Skype in their questions, comments, and feedback. A few of us did. Additionally, there is a backchannel on Ustream where virtual attendees can discuss the session with text.
Although there were issues with connectivity that I presume had to do with the bandwidth at the conference in NC causing my Skype conversation to be cut short and often caused the Ustream video to freeze at times this setup made me feel I was actually there. Can you imagine if this becomes standard practice for conference presenters? What would that mean for professional development? What would that mean for sharing ideas? If you could attend any session at any conference done by any person and could provide real time feedback, how valuable would that be?
On top of the cool tools this session used the content was engaging, relevant, and useful as well.
4 comments:
I also attended that conference workshop and I also found out about it through twitter. What an amazing opportunity for us to attend conferences that apply to our professional life on the spur of the moment. As tech people, we have the luxury of attending the conferences from our office while multi-tasking on something else. It's too bad all teachers can't do that.
I love your blog. I added it to my feeds.
I too was in the backchannel and couldn't agree more - this is the perfect example of where things are headed. I got a Twit from David Warlick as he was presenting, linked into the live video, participated in the conversation, and now linked Carl's blog to explore even more. WOW! And Carl - great blog, will add to my favs.
Carl,
Thanks so much for contributing. The connection was pretty broken up, but one of the attendees was able to figure out what you were saying, and we talked about after you were disconnected.
Thanks again!
Great to hear you enjoyed Ustream and as the premier Live Video service, in my humble opinion, we always strive to make the user experience as clean and safe as possible. We are thrilled with the way the educational community has accepted Ustream. In that vein the tricks, tips and techniques in using Ustream that are available are numerous so feel free to contact us in the manner that best suits you or your veiwers. Beside email you may also post in the forums or stop in with one of our live community channels
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/ustream-users-community-forum or http://tinyurl.com/2zadfd
or http://www.ustream.tv/channel/aeiz
or http://www.ustream.tv/channel/fireman17-tv
Hints:
Better Shows..http://ustream.tv/professional-show
Speed Tests.. www.speakeasy.net/speedtest.
Ustream Help..http://ustream.tv/helpcenter/helpcenter
Diagnostics for Ustream,,http://www.ustream.tv/streamtest/
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