edublogs

(Not) coping with cognitive overload

In Greenville last week Chris Craft led one of the best presentations I've ever been in on (it was about how to present effectively, so had an interest in being top of the game). His work on cognitive load theory is, this week at NECC, striking a chord with me. There's. Too. Much. Noise.

I mean noise in the physical sense and in this metaphorical one. At EduBloggerCon conversations were cut down in their prime as people moved on to other, in my case, less engaging ones. In the Bloggers' Café conversations are fantastic but interrupted with urgent meetings or "you gotta see this"s or just someone having loud fun two feet away.

My cognitive load is constantly tipping over into extraneous. Let Chris's talk explain:

Intrinsic load is the natural load required to complete a task. It can be easy sometimes (driving from home to school) or heavy on others (being an air traffic controller), but we can be trained to cope with it.

The Germane level of load is the optimum level we can cope with, where we maximise the load we are under. In lessons and projects we can feel that Germane load as 'flow', where everything's going in our favour, and then...

Extraneous load comes along, where we all go wrong, especially when we are communicating information in, say, a presentation. It's when, mid flow, the grass starts getting cut outside. Or when someone has to leave a meeting early.

Overload occurs here. The person who missed the earlier part of the meeting, or left early, or the sensation that someone is talking at you when you're in deep conversation with another person opposite, or the kid who doesn't understand where you're at, who isn't with you because they didn't understand the initial point of the project...

When they reach that breaking point they default, they default to the only reaction that's available. They default to an old familiar way, an automatic behaviour, a kind of behaviour where we immediately kick ourselves and ask: "Why on earth did I say that? Where on earth did that come from?"

This is what has been happening to me for the past two days. I've become someone I hate: snarky, off-task, unproductive, unthinking. I've started caring about whether people are streaming video around me where I never did before (I can't have a chat in confidence without 40 people in cyberspace listening in - just happened). Worst of all, I'm finding that without my usual 'white space' or 'beta time' to think, I have nothing to say to people. I have no ideas for the article on the state of social media in education that was due on Friday, that I want to get finished for tomorrow.

I feel like the glass that's got water gushing into it from the tap - despite all that water this particular glass  is always going to be half empty when the tap eventually turns off. Most of the input will have fallen off down the drain.

So what is an unconference?

After earlier snarks, maybe I should explain. It's watching this, this and this, experiencing this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, and this. It's not having someone cut your conversation short because another session is about to start.

Edubloggercon's not an unconference: here's why

Me, taking the 'mic' out of a conference-y intervention from Pearson at the unconference. Urgh. Pic: Will.

Within five minutes of arriving at Edubloggercon I've heard nothing innovative, I've had an advertisement from Pearson (surely the anti-Christ of unconferencing) who are here to make recordings of these incredibly innovative teachers for their own R&D. I'm just hoping that someone got a whole wad of cash from them to do that.

I've always been narked by the affirmation that Edubloggercon was the first unconference of its kind, when clearly we've been doing them since 2005 in Scotland. But it's not even that. I've shared what makes an unconference great before, but here are the cardinal rules that I think we're missing in San Antonio today:

• Voting on sessions
  The physical space should try to respect the online space: there are no limits on time or space, so just hold all of the sessions, let people choose.
• There is no time limit
  Sessions which are strung out to an hour where 7 minutes would have done, or which last an hour when three would have been better... that's a conference. Unconferences should know no limits.
• Advertising
  No-one gets to advertise, even if they did give you a load of cash. They don't even have the right to present unless it's about stuff going on in classrooms here and now.
• Rows
  We don't do rows. Round tables, no tables. People need to circulate easily, which precludes rows and trying to hop over Sheryl Nussaum-Beach's flowing robes ;-)
• Free beer
  Pearson should've paid for that. Well, we should have started off with some muffins and coffee, paid for by them.
• Get it started without anything conference-y.
  Within no more than five minutes we should be hearing from someone's innovation. The people need to speak. Don't make us wait 43 minutes to go through admin.

Get yourself 2 2gether

If I weren't 7,000 miles away I'd be in London on July 2-3 for 2gether08, and recommend that you get yourself there asap if you can to take part in the social innovation conference of the year.

2gether is a unique new festival ideas, popular technologies and social progress, with the inaugural Festival taking place in Shoreditch in East London. There's a superb lineup of talks and panel discussions, with an opportunity to participate in ideas pitching, and a chance to experience some great film and music.

The main sponsor is Channel 4 and the RSA are partnering in its development alongside Unltd, Involve and creative networking champs Chinwag. 2gether will to bring together creatives, technologists and champions of change to focus on how we can all innovate to promote social progress, well being and sustainability.

It's not a freebee, for once, but the lineup makes the ticket more than worthwhile. You can see what you're missing, too, if you're not feeling so flush this summer.

Probably the best conference venue in the world

  Probably the best conference in the world 
  Originally uploaded by Edublogger

What a treat for a blogging conference-goer: free, very fast wifi, electricity on tap, a wide-screen projection for wrap-around presentations and no podiums to get in the way of those tasteful headshots we'll be capturing and posting to the LIFT08 Flickr feed. They've even got headphones for the translation of one of the French presentations and Laurent's gang have laid on trams for us to get to our Fondue tonight. The best conference in the world? Probably.

Designing a new social web tool

  The Social Stack 
  Originally uploaded by Edublogger

The 1990s were about categorising and storing stuff, using your email as your main communication method, your to-do list and your progress chart. 2008 should be about changing the inbox to the feedreader, not storing emails to deal with but getting a flow through the feed of information: read it, use it or lose it.

In a three-hour morning session with Lee and the guys from Headshift, a group of around 50 of us are looking at creating a prototype tool, a new one that takes feeds, flow, activity and peripheral awareness and rolls them into one, with a little bit of GTD on the side.

Key to this is trying to create something that uses attention feedback to drive the relevance of information for people in an organisation. That is, as individuals search and use information, the system adapts itself to provide even more relevant "you might be interested in this, too" information.

We'll also use Headshift's 'Social Stack' to structure things:

Personal Tools
Organise your stuff by tags; arrange in a portal; manage networks and feeds

Group Collaboration
initmate groups/teams organise in wikis in group systems

Blogs and Networks
Some items or topics are shared with networks and discussed in blogs

Bookmarks and Tags
People store, share, tag, vote or comment on useful links and news

Public feeds and flows
Internal and external RSS feeds based on subject, person, group or search

Note that this starts from the bottom.

This workshop lasts three hours, so there's a chance for you to jump in here on the blog if you have some ideas to contribute. I'll pass on your ideas to the group.

Soon to get LIFT-ed up

Twice a year I get a real treat to head off and think about what we're doing with technology, for three days with like-minded people in a beautiful ornate echo chamber. From February 6th I'll be participating and (hopefully) speaking at LIFT, in Geneva, thinking about how social media in particular can effect some real positive change in education, business and Government.

Some of the conference will be podcast on the TED Conference podcast later this year, but I will be speed-typing and speed-reflecting as I go along, so stay tuned. Once the talks, workshops and discussions have been voted in by the participants next week I'll post what I'm off to see (you can also try to bend my arm if you wish, and I'll head over to a session on your virtual behalf).

If you're coming along, then please vote if you think my open stage talk on opening education or the discussion on the forthcoming I4SM would be of interest to you.

In the meantime, think about what you might enjoy by visiting the proposals pages and let me know what I should head along to. You might also like to get an insight into the event with this natty little vid:

2007's Top Five Photos in Review

Dean has set me one of the toughest end-of-year-navel-gazing-but-jolly-good-fun tasks: my favourite five photos. I could spend a long time on this, so I've also used Flickr's interestingess and stats, too, along with my personal prefs to find the five ones that mean the most:


The most beautiful baby on the planet, my number one choice for a photo (though not taken by me). Amongst the memorable times, her first aeroplane trip to New Zealand - 26,000 miles at six weeks.

One of my cheeky shots at BLC07 this year of Will, it's indicative of the thrill and fun I had meeting old friends and meeting old online friends for the first time. Our evening on the ship, with raucous laughter and far too much of Christian Long's favourite brandy, made all this blogging stuff worthwhile! [more pics]

This was a pivotal moment for me: the people (and beer) that made me decide to go self-employed. Steve Moore, left, is one person to whom I am eternally grateful, for his confidence-boosting and considerable recommendations that have led to many an interesting rencontre. Euan Semple helped me work out how much ($) and how much (:-) I was worth. This scene is from Reboot in Copenhagen, a conference/unconference based around the theme of Human?, at which I talked without meaning to, and had confirmation from those outside education that education was doing lots of things right. [more pics]

The stats say you love this one: the kilos of kit required to keep online conferences on the road (and this RSS/Flickr/unconference junkie in one piece). I've since upped my insurance cover... This particular bunch of kit was for something else I loved, but didn't have enough photos for: TeachMeet.

Mike Coulter decided at the beginning of 2007 that anyone interested in social media in Edinburgh needed a place to wax lyrical: Edinburgh Coffee Morning was born. The off-white tables at Centotre have been the stage for many a discovery, a talk-through, an idea-bounce, a new friendship. Thanks to Mike for starting it all, and all the lads and lasses who've made it along on those early morns this year. [more pics]

The problem of talking about the new web: you have to do it, too

I do hope Stephen Heppell responds to Bill Kerr's points on his Australian keynote speech, points that sum up something with which I, as a conference presenter, become increasingly uncomfortable:

1) An important international expert arrives from overseas to tell us that local knowledge is the most important thing;
2) We sit in lecture mode hearing that the lecture is no longer important;
3) The limitations of web2.0 apps are not mentioned. There was no context either historical (computer science) or historical, about all the knowledge discovered before computers were invented.

When I'm giving a talk I'm nearly always within the constraints of the organiser: "can you please come and give us a talk at this time slot", they ask. I then go on to lecture on how important it is to collaborate, but hope, at least, that collaboration will take place after the initial lecture.

The extended conference experience - not just a lecture
In my classroom I would start with 2-5 minutes 'lecture', setting the context, before the carousel of collaboration would begin for the rest of the 50 minute period. On the same scale, if I'm giving a one hour lecture you can expect the collaboration to go on for at least ten weeks thereafter (one hour a week responding to the concerns of locals who attended the talk). An essential part and package of my offer is the blog, and that people have the courage to at least email or leave comments on the 'lecture post'.

This both shows that local knowledge and skills are indeed the most important element but within the context of a global communications space, hence my professional relationships with teachers in New Zealand and the States being, arguably, more in-depth than my professional relationships with non-blogging teachers in Scotland.

The final point, about historical and cultural positioning of new technologies, is vital. That's why one of the talks I enjoy giving the most is Why Scotland's Been Blogging For 5 Million Years, applicable to most countries in showing that this is less a revolution, as a reformation. It's not so much new, as reminding people of what it means to be a human being, what makes us tick, and bringing that back into learning. These things include connecting to others, conversing, asking questions and giving answers. None of that, of course, is achievable in a traditional lecture format, but possible in my 'extended lecture' notion. If only more keynoters picked up discussions on their blog (if they had one of them, if... ;-)

If you haven't seen or heard Stephen speak you can catch him at the Scottish Learning Festival video website, in one of many videos captured for the Learning about Learning series or in the new Journey For Excellencedownload him onto your iPod for the trip home tonight.
site (search for 'Heppell'). You can even
Enjoy - it's good stuff - but you may have to do some of your own thinking to work out how it applies to you. And I can't think of anything good teachers would enjoy more than thinking about how to do their stuff better.

(Wo)man of Web 2.0 Skypecast

  Taking part in a brill Skype debate, WOW2.0 
  Originally uploaded by Edublogger

I had a ball this afternoon, October 10th, sitting as a Scottish educator in New Zealand debating with teachers working in 'yesterday', October 9th, about tomorrow's opportunities. If only the time difference really did allow us to gaze into the crystal ball...

The Women of Web 2.0 invited David Jakes and me to their Tuesday night shindig of a debate, with over 60 educators from all over the planet tuning in to the live Skypecast 'radio show' and chipping in on the chat zone. It was great to see Neil Winton back home chipping in with some great wee points about the superb work he's doing, helping to back up some of what David and I were saying, and I was indebted to Suzie in my new 'home' of NZ for relaying the chat over to me, as I sat in a local high school which wouldn't quite let me get into that (but which was great at allowing YouTube, Flickr etc etc).

We covered a lot of ground, but the main things that I was trying to get across were:

• We must make sure that we call a spade a spade when dealing with new technology. Pandering to 'baby speak' when it comes to new technologies will only delay the inevitable; better that educators accept the 'jargon' that their teens see as normal vocabulary.
• It's easy to assume that all teachers have an equal understanding of educational jargon; we don't. Blogs, wikis and podcasts might be unsavoury vocabulary for many educators, used as a way to escape having to learn new skills. What about assessment for learning, assessment as learning, inquiry skills, rich tasks, cooperative learning... For many educators these still remain meaningless jargon, but arguably are even more worthy of attention than blogs, wikis and podcasts. At least with the former, the latter begin to make sense.
• Small agile nations seem to be doing best in the education world. What can big nations do to become more like exciting energised startups than large corporations?

I think you'll be able to download the full hour long debate from the Women of Web 2.0 wiki soon. The full audio and text from the chat is available