Tag: conferences

Where I’ll be at BETT 2016

Posted on January 18, 2016January 18, 2016 by Doug Belshaw

I’ve spoken at BETT in many guises. I started off as a teacher, then I went as a school senior leader, then went there during my time with Jisc, then Mozilla… This time around, BETT 2016 will be my first as a consultant. On the first day I’m there I’ll have my City & Guilds hat on as they’re one of my main clients. On the second, I’m representing myself (i.e. Dynamic Skillset).

I love to hate BETT. While I dislike the amount of snake oil I see there, it’s worth attending because of the people. While I’m there I try to bring a dose of healthy edtech skepticism. I also try and show people alternatives to to their current reality.

This year, you can catch me at BETT at the following times:

Wednesday 20th

The first session I’m involved with on Wednesday is a presentation with Bryan Mathers. We’ll be talking about educational credentials such as Open Badges, and how City & Guilds can help with this. We’ll be going both wide and deep.

The Digital Skills Sandwich: credentialing 21st literacies in a fast-paced environment (1:45pm to 2:15pm) Learn Live Further Education and Skills theatre

The second session is one I’m chairing. I’m looking forward to asking probing questions of the panellists and getting input from the audience!

Connecting With Young People: Using Social Media and Digital Marketing to Enhance Student Recruitment (4:45pm to 5:30pm) Learn Live Further Education and Skills theatre

If you’re attending BETT and want to catch up, lunch, a coffee after my presentation, or dinner are your best options.

Thursday 21st

I’m only doing one short presentation on Thursday, and spending the rest of my time wandering around. I’ll be presenting on the Exa Networks stand (full programme), after being asked nicely by Alan O’Donohoe. Space is limited and there’ll be 10 minutes for questions afterwards.

How to be an (open) badger (12:00-12:20) Stand B160 – Exa Education

I’m hoping to bump into a few people on Thursday before heading home late afternoon. I’ll be pretty flexible, so if you want to say hello, do tweet me (@dajbelshaw) or email me beforehand to arrange a time ([email protected]).

If you’re interested in where I’ll be over the coming year, then you might want to check out my Lanyrd profile. I still need to update it with some stuff from last year, but event-wise it’s a decent overview of my past/future movements!

Weeknote 09/2013

Posted on March 2, 2013 by Doug Belshaw

This week I’ve been:

Preparing for the session I’m running with Kate Stokes (Nesta) at SXSWedu.
Calculating my expenses.
Explaining to quite a few people that Mozilla doesn’t usually ‘partner’ with other organisations on bids (but that I’m happy to be listed as an advisor).
Playing lots of games as part of the nomination committee for Mozilla’s Game On competition.
Writing a book chapter overview for Dave White about the philosophical implications of simultaneously inhabiting physical and virtual worlds.
Adding descriptions to the articles, blog posts and books in the Web Literacy standard ‘library’.
Collaborating with my colleagues Carla Casilli and Erin Knight on a vision document for the Web Literacy standard work.
Discovering Firefox tab groups, courtesy of Laura Hilliger.
Meeting with builders to discuss my shoffice.
Responding to conference organisers asking for titles for presentation, preferences for food, accommodation, etc.
Updating my Lanyrd profile and adding conferences I’m attending over the next few months.
Sorting out my corporation tax for the now-defunct Synechism Ltd.
Leading a webinar on Open Badges for the Centre for Recording Achievement. Slides here.
Hosting the inaugural Mozilla Web Literacy standard community call.
Speaking to people thinking of using Open Badges for various projects.

Next week I’ll be in Austin, Texas for SXSW 2013. I’m flying out on Sunday and arrive back on Friday. So next week’s update is likely to be a bit shorter…

Wordle-like Twitter screens for conference keynote presenters?

Posted on April 21, 2012 by Doug Belshaw

I’ve been at the PELeCON conference this week. After her keynote, Keri Facer mentioned in a couple of tweets that the Twitter wall being visible to the audience but not the speaker can be problematic. Everything was positive in Keri’s session, but this isn’t necessarily the case for everyone (see danah boyd example).

So it got me thinking about what I’d like, as a presenter, when doing a keynote. There’s lots of different reasons tweet about a session using the conference hashtag. For example:

To let those who aren’t there know what’s being said
To give a voice to the livestream audience (if applicable)
To provide links to what’s being discussed
For banter/puns/general merrymaking
For agreement, disagreement and questions

…and many more.

Whilst you’re presenting there’s no way you can keep up with the stream in the same way that you (potentially) can when in the audience. But it would be nice to know the gist of what people are saying in the backchannel.

Thinking about it, I casually remarked that some kind of Twitter screen in front of presenters would be useful. And if those tweets that had been retweeted (RT’d) several times could appear bigger, so much the better.

Chris Atherton mentioned this sounded a lot like Wordle and Pat Parslow riffed on the idea talking about the potential for sentiment analysis.

That idea look something like this with traffic light colours for sentiment:

The trouble is, that’s still too much to take in whilst you’re presenting. So, thinking some more, I reckon all that’s needed is the top three most RT’d tweets. Which would look something like this:

What do you think? Would this be useful?

How hard would it be to make it a reality?