home

toc

Conference 2.0
Web 2.0 has provided a number of opportunities for new collaborative events to take place at and around conferences. The events can enhance participants' connections, dialog, and engagement. It is believed in the meeting planning community that if meeting attendees get to know each other via social technology before the conference, the networking opportunity at the conference site is enhanced. There are many tools that allow this enhancement of networking but few of them allow focus around the educational content provide by, and at, the gathering. Some conference 2.0 vendors are providing this twist allowing speaker/attendee engagement and discussion around the abstracts presentations and session materials, to further enhance the educational value of the conference. This is also thought to extend the life of conference, also referred to as a Living Conference.

NECC "Unplugged" (www.NECCunplugged.com)
Exciting developments [|here].

= Resources / References =
 * Steve Hargadon, "[|Evaluating the Classroom 2.0 Workshop in SF]"
 * Will Richardson, "[|The Ultimate Conference Attendee]"
 * Steve Hargadon, [|Conference 2.0 (in response to Will Richardson post)]
 * Sylvia Martinez, [|Conferences Must Change with the Times]
 * Sylvia Martinez, [|Conference 2.0 - Changing How Sessions Are Selected]
 * Steve Dickie, [|MACUL's Gorilla Sessions 08]
 * Fortune Magazine, [|Welcome to Conference 2.0]
 * Lucie deLaBruere, [|Conference 2.0]
 * Julie Lindsay, [|Conference 2.0: The Global Stage Awaits]
 * Paula Thornton, [|Conference 2.0]
 * Stephanie Sandifer, [|Conference 2.0 Resources]
 * George Siemens, Peter Tittenberger, and Terry Anderson, [|Conference Connections: Rewiring the Circuit]
 * Chris Lehman, Conference 2.0 -- [|NECC, Reflections and Moving Forward]
 * Wikipedia on [|BarCamps]
 * Wikipedia on [|Open Space Technology]
 * Wikipedia on [|Open Conferences]
 * Wikipedia on [|Unconferences]
 * Wikipedia on [|Conference 2.0>]
 * Julius Solaris, [|20 resources for a smooth BarCamp]
 * CNNMoney.com, [|Why "unconferences" are fun conferences]
 * Ewan McIntosh's [|10 Top Tips for Unplanning the Perfect Unconference]
 * [|TeachMeets]
 * [|SpeedGeeking]
 * [|Open Space World]
 * [|Unconference.net Blog]
 * Chris Heuer, [|The Rise of Amateur Conferences]

Information and links for twitter, chat, video/audio stream, tag, meet-up, and other conference-specific details all in one place. Please put most recent events at the top.
 * NECC 2008 (June 29 - July 2, 2008)
 * [|CEC]- (Boston, April 2-5) Legislative Action Center will have computers at the conference. CAN (Child and Adolescent Network) Meeting - will have video/audio stream on Friday, April 4 from 11:45-1:00 (@loonyhiker on twitter)
 * CoSN (March 9 - 13, 2008) - no Internet to speak of, so not really applicable... :(
 * [|CUE*FETC] (October 14-16, 2008) San Jose Convention Center
 * CUE 2008 (March 5 - 8, 2008)
 * EduCon 2.0 (January 25 - 27, 2008)

Social Networks
A conference social network allows participants to be a part of engaged dialog before, during, and after the show. It provides them with an ability to use many of the tools of Web 2.0 in a way that even beginners can participate, including the use of personal pages, threaded forums, blogging, photo/audio/video sharing, and friendship-building. An example of such a social network can be seen at [|www.Classroom20.com]. Other options:
 * A special forum discussion for conference ideas that can be monitored by the conference management
 * Forum threads for each presentation/event at the conference (this allows discussion before, during, and after the actual presentations)
 * A special greeting from the Conference chair on the start page
 * A set of customized links to other Conference web resources
 * Use our advertising code program that we have already created for Classroom 2.0 to place ads for conference sponsor on the right hand column--allowing either to give placement to the advertisers as an additional value for sponsoring the conference, or even charging for those ads;
 * A training session (by phone) for conference management on how the network is organized and how to follow the discussions.
 * Some companies that sell a conference 2.0 solution will for a fee, administer the engagement services around the conference.

EduBloggerCons
"Cooperative" or "Un-" Conferences of educational bloggers, held in conjunction with regular educational technology conferences. Working with the blogging community, using the [|www.EduBloggerCon.com] wiki site and email discussion link, to set up a one-day "unconference" for the educational blogging community. The blogging community helps promote and hold the event. For an example of his this was done at NECC 2007, see http://edubloggercon.wikispaces .com/EduBloggerCon+2007+Atlanta. See [|EduBloggerCon.com].

Panels
Panel discussions held as a session at a regular conference, utilizing collaborative technologies to allow for active audience participation. At the Office 2.0 Conference in San Francisco, we used SurveyMonkey.com to survey the audience about their interests as we started, and to prioritize the questions we would address. We also had a chat window projected on the screen behind us if they wanted to ask questions (which didn't really do much).


 * "Classroom 2.0"** The panelists listed on this page are available to participate in discussions on the use of Web 2.0 and collaborative technologies in the classroom. See the list [|here.] See the proposal template here.


 * "Social Networking in Education"** The panelists listed on this page are available to participate in discussions on the use of social networking in the classroom or for professional development and administrative use. See the list [|here]. See the proposal template here.

Twitter
An SMS messaging account for a conference can allow conference attendees to subscribe to messages from the conference organizers using their mobile phone/sms devices. Messaging will likely be limited, but gives the organizers an ability to communicate quickly and effectively with some large portion of attendees on a moments notice, with both organizational and safety benefits.

Session Tagging / RSS Feeds
Producing a standardized list of "tags" for the conference sessions and activities, and then a comprehensive web document listing the tags and RSS feeds to include in the conference social network, on the conference website, and anywhere else that is appropriate. An example of this can be seen at [|www.NECC2007.org]. The tags allow blogging and audio/photo/video posting to be standardized, and there will be links to see all blogs posts, photos, audio, and video tagged accordingly. As well, there can be links to RSS feeds to allow subscriptions to the same material.

Bloggers' Cafe
Initially suggested by David Warlick on an NECC suggestion wiki. Set up an area for bloggers to congregate, relax, talk, etc. during the show. Needs to have power, comfortable chairs/couches, tables; would benefit from pc with plasma display, internet, and sound speakers.

Classroom 2.0 Cafe
An extension of the Bloggers' Cafe, more inclusive of all educators using Web 2.0 and collaborative technologies.

Session Podcasting
Recording and dissemination of audio.

Live Video Streaming
Ustream Mogulus

Backchannel Chatting
Support network for IM communications between participants, and sometimes speakers/presenters. I'm really interested in finding good forum/discussion programs for this. My main gripe has been that even the really good discussion programs I've seen don't have the ability to thread comments. Recommendations? UPDATE: Recently signed up for campfirenow.com, which is very good. Twitter would require the conference organizers to befriend each person who wants to participate, but campfire now doesn't require this--however, it comes at a cost. There is a free alternative I just found out about: www.lingr.com. At the IL-TCE 2008 conference, www.chatzy.com was used extensively.

Commercial Solutions

 * Conference 2.0™ : []
 * Ubidesk: http://ubidesk.com (Online collaboration for Groups)