Shifts in the power structure of the conference. Who are the members expecting to have power? When do they take power? When do they have power passed to them? When is power forced upon them? How does this happen? Why does it happen?
keynote, originally uploaded by ebbsgrove. First try at using the blog in place of Powerpoint. Again, this was inspired by reading blogs condemning the widespread use of Powerpoint.
Blogs can also be used to analyse data by making use of the ‘Categories’ function Nigel Robson in AACS cloned our group blog for us We now have 29 blog categories http://conclave.open.ac.uk/iet-students-analysis/ (categories are shown on the right). Blog management tools provide an overview of these.
Blogs can be used as data. Anesa, Gill and I are studying our own blog and our group blog Gill is collecting data on informal mobile learning http://conclave.open.ac.uk/naturetrailblog/ This can be contrasted with the data collected in a wiki http://schome.open.ac.uk/wikiworks/index.php/The_Open_University_Nature_Trail
woodleywise, originally uploaded by ebbsgrove. IET bloggers include Alan (above, if you couldn’t guess) Anesa Gill Juliette Patrick Steve Is this a virtual community of practice?
heatmaps, originally uploaded by ebbsgrove. It’s easy to follow up comments in other people’s blogs. This is a page from the blog of Tony Hirst, who’s a lecturer in the Technology department. I referred to it on 15 September and again on 9 November Also discussed it with Steve and various others
Group blog functions as a group memory. Our top five this year (two tied for fifth place): Tracking the sources of ideas Providing references Responding to others’ ideas Noting things to do and remember Writing about academic events Humour Making use of the comment function and the emoticons. Group blog in action http://conclave.open.ac.uk/iet-students/?p=75
Using the blog as a research journal. Over 30 different uses. My top five: Reflecting on and discussing ideas Noting things to do and remember Tracking the sources of ideas Expressing uncertainty Providing references Blogs are searchable by word and date. They are accessible via any Internet-linked computer or via PDA.
netvibes, originally uploaded by ebbsgrove. You don’t have to put your rss feeds into a blog. These RSS feeds are on my netvibes page http://www.netvibes.com/ Lots of connections to people in IET: Gill, Anesa, Juliette, Alan…
stephen downes, originally uploaded by ebbsgrove. http://www.downes.ca/ Blogs can take the form of an online diary or journal. Or they can be composed almost entirely of RSS feeds