For my post of the day, I thought I would capture some of my thoughts about the execution of the 2008 Learning Design Summer Camp.
The facilities were excellent! We held the event in Foster Auditorium in Pattee Library. On Monday, I went there with some of our video production staff to bring in the equipment and supplies. The room has a computer podium with two video screens (mirroring the same image on the left and right sides of the room). We set up a third screen for the Live Question Tool, so anyone could submit a question during the presentation and other people can vote and reply. Every seat in the room has a power outlet. That alone is a huge deal, considering that about 80 people brought their laptops. The seats also had wired internet connections or people could log into the wireless network. There was a minor problem with getting the audio feed into our recording equipment on Tuesday morning, but we got to the right people and the problem was fixed 30 minutes before our official start.
The stickers were more popular than I thought they would be. People there tended to take more than one and used different badges each day. Practically no one just wrote their name on a card and put it in a traditional name badge holder. Most used the special name badges that had prompts like "I stay current by ..." (fill in the blank). There were 16 different options and I saw most of them in use on one day or the other. However, there was a little bottleneck getting into the room since people were reading over the name badges and picking out stickers.
Using the special meal cards (from the ID+ card office) was a good idea. It let us use any on-campus dining facility where people could get what they wanted instead of trying to bring food into the library. It also let everyone pick the food that they wanted to eat -- especially important for people with dietary restrictions. The University Libraries staff was kind enough to donate library-safe mugs for everyone. So people could use the meal cards to get a drink at the cafe (attached to the library) and carry them into Foster Auditorium in the mugs.
The back channel communication at the event (mostly Twitter and Berkman's Live Question Tool) were a fantastic addition. It was a little odd seeing so many people typing away on their laptops, but nearly everyone was engaged in some way. We had dozens of questions posted to the Live Question Tool for each of the main sessions. People were voting on the questions they liked and also replying to or clarifying questions asked by others. Twitter was being used more for general comments, opinions, humor, and facility-related issues. For example, there was a question on Day 1 about problems getting a MacBook Air connected to the wireless network that was handled over Twitter.
Stevie Rocco brought a big bell to Summer Camp on Day 1 to ring if anyone went over their 10-minute time limit during the Lightning Talk session after lunch. That bell is loud. I was the first to do my Lightning Talk and the first to be belled. It really woke people up and added a game-like atmosphere to the talks.
During Day 2, the session on Open Education had Keith Bailey join in via iChat while in the passenger seat of his car. Keith was on vacation, but wanted to participate in the event so badly that we worked out the details so he could connect in using a Verizon wireless card. There was a lot of audio feedback when he spoke, which was unfortunate, but the idea of him connecting into the Summer Camp while on the road was very cool. It was like seeing videos from astronauts in space. Keith is also a very smart guy and had a lot to add about the Open Education topic, so I'm glad he could join in.
A couple of areas for improvement: this event is less structured than a typical conference, so when it was time for people to pitch new session ideas or organize their groups to walk to their meeting area, they weren't sure what to do. I have heard that Northern Voice uses a white board to organize its small-group unconference meetings, so that may work better. Coaching the discussion leaders would have been a good idea as well. I have to wonder what percentage of this is just me getting used to this kind of event, where people are expected to stand up and start a new discussion topic. The unconference elements were beyond my control, but maybe instead of making those elements more structured, I should make the whole event less structured so people understand their role from the beginning. I'll have to give this more thought.
Also, after lunch, there was a definite energy drain in the group. To some extent, it was the post-lunch lull. But I think that mental exhaustion kicked into gear. The three morning sessions were pretty tightly packed together with no break, and then lunch was also a discussion time. Add that on top of the new ideas that were being thrown around and I think people just needed a break to think and digest. So we did some report-outs from the small groups from 1:00 until 2:30 or so, then we wrapped up the Summer Camp a little early.
Cole set up a form attached to a Google Spreadsheet for the conference evaluation. I'm really looking forward to seeing the results so I can see what people thought about this kind of event and what we can to to make it better. I'm sure I'll be revisting this topic again in the blog.
A few final thoughts and fodder for future posts:
The facilities were excellent! We held the event in Foster Auditorium in Pattee Library. On Monday, I went there with some of our video production staff to bring in the equipment and supplies. The room has a computer podium with two video screens (mirroring the same image on the left and right sides of the room). We set up a third screen for the Live Question Tool, so anyone could submit a question during the presentation and other people can vote and reply. Every seat in the room has a power outlet. That alone is a huge deal, considering that about 80 people brought their laptops. The seats also had wired internet connections or people could log into the wireless network. There was a minor problem with getting the audio feed into our recording equipment on Tuesday morning, but we got to the right people and the problem was fixed 30 minutes before our official start.
The stickers were more popular than I thought they would be. People there tended to take more than one and used different badges each day. Practically no one just wrote their name on a card and put it in a traditional name badge holder. Most used the special name badges that had prompts like "I stay current by ..." (fill in the blank). There were 16 different options and I saw most of them in use on one day or the other. However, there was a little bottleneck getting into the room since people were reading over the name badges and picking out stickers.
Using the special meal cards (from the ID+ card office) was a good idea. It let us use any on-campus dining facility where people could get what they wanted instead of trying to bring food into the library. It also let everyone pick the food that they wanted to eat -- especially important for people with dietary restrictions. The University Libraries staff was kind enough to donate library-safe mugs for everyone. So people could use the meal cards to get a drink at the cafe (attached to the library) and carry them into Foster Auditorium in the mugs.
The back channel communication at the event (mostly Twitter and Berkman's Live Question Tool) were a fantastic addition. It was a little odd seeing so many people typing away on their laptops, but nearly everyone was engaged in some way. We had dozens of questions posted to the Live Question Tool for each of the main sessions. People were voting on the questions they liked and also replying to or clarifying questions asked by others. Twitter was being used more for general comments, opinions, humor, and facility-related issues. For example, there was a question on Day 1 about problems getting a MacBook Air connected to the wireless network that was handled over Twitter.
Stevie Rocco brought a big bell to Summer Camp on Day 1 to ring if anyone went over their 10-minute time limit during the Lightning Talk session after lunch. That bell is loud. I was the first to do my Lightning Talk and the first to be belled. It really woke people up and added a game-like atmosphere to the talks.
During Day 2, the session on Open Education had Keith Bailey join in via iChat while in the passenger seat of his car. Keith was on vacation, but wanted to participate in the event so badly that we worked out the details so he could connect in using a Verizon wireless card. There was a lot of audio feedback when he spoke, which was unfortunate, but the idea of him connecting into the Summer Camp while on the road was very cool. It was like seeing videos from astronauts in space. Keith is also a very smart guy and had a lot to add about the Open Education topic, so I'm glad he could join in.
A couple of areas for improvement: this event is less structured than a typical conference, so when it was time for people to pitch new session ideas or organize their groups to walk to their meeting area, they weren't sure what to do. I have heard that Northern Voice uses a white board to organize its small-group unconference meetings, so that may work better. Coaching the discussion leaders would have been a good idea as well. I have to wonder what percentage of this is just me getting used to this kind of event, where people are expected to stand up and start a new discussion topic. The unconference elements were beyond my control, but maybe instead of making those elements more structured, I should make the whole event less structured so people understand their role from the beginning. I'll have to give this more thought.
Also, after lunch, there was a definite energy drain in the group. To some extent, it was the post-lunch lull. But I think that mental exhaustion kicked into gear. The three morning sessions were pretty tightly packed together with no break, and then lunch was also a discussion time. Add that on top of the new ideas that were being thrown around and I think people just needed a break to think and digest. So we did some report-outs from the small groups from 1:00 until 2:30 or so, then we wrapped up the Summer Camp a little early.
Cole set up a form attached to a Google Spreadsheet for the conference evaluation. I'm really looking forward to seeing the results so I can see what people thought about this kind of event and what we can to to make it better. I'm sure I'll be revisting this topic again in the blog.
A few final thoughts and fodder for future posts:
- If we do this again next year, June or July would be much better. August is too busy with preparations for fall.
- We had a talk early today about blogs as portfolio and then a lunch talk about professional development. My mashup is this: blogs can help you with your professional development, but they may be even more useful for your community. Even this post -- it's a memory-aid for me, but it may be a source of good ideas for someone else who is planning this type of event.
- Another thought on open education: IMHO sharing content should be seen like swapping recipes. You hand over something that has worked for you and then let others adapt it for their own tastes.
- Are the people who attend and actively participate in an event like the Learning Design Summer Camp more likely to have an internal locus of control? In other words, are they more likely to be the type of people who take responsibility for things like their own professional development? I doubt they are the type of person who waits until someone assigns them to attend something like the summer camp. As far as I know, the only people who were required to be there were me, Brett, and Cole.
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