NaaceBlogs

The officlal All Members’ Conference 2008 blog is now available to members and can be found at:

http://amac2008.naaceblogs.org/

Both delegates and those unable to attend can post comments on each of the sessions before and after the conference. Perhaps it’s a question for the speaker, or a more general comment on what was said. Following the event the session posts will be populated with session slides and videocasts where possible.

At the recent Naace Strategic Conference, Naace launched Naace Communities, a social networking site for members. Naace Communities enables members to collaborate with each other via social networking tools and set up communities of practice. Using Elgg at its core, each member and community has their own blog, and individuals can make their posts private, available to members only or the wider world. Naace Communities is not intended to replace Naaceblogs, but to complement it. The blogging tool is a lot simpler and does not have the features of WordPress MU used for Naaceblogs. However, its use of RSS feeds enable members to feed their Naaceblog into any blog within the communities providing additional flexibility.

A Naace Community blog was therefore used to form the Strategic Conference Delegate lounge this year in preference to Naaceblogs.

Once again Naace’s major annual conference is taking place in Torquay, and the Conference blog will keep members and others up to date with the programme. Following the conference, video of he keynote sessions will be integrated into the blog. This year, for the first time, live conference blogging will take place using Coveritlive, a new live blogging tool. See the results on the conference blog.

This week twenty nine Naace members started a course in Second Life, the online virtual environment. The first meeting took place on Wednesday evening. Initiated by Leon Cych, and hosted in a ‘Naace lounge’ donated for the purpose by Jenny Pierce, the course will take 10 weeks and cover the practical elements of the environment. The group are also using other web 2.0 technology to network including social networking sites, wikis and blogs. If you are interested in their personal reflections, day by day, a communal naaceblog has been set up.

Observations so far seem to be saying that Second Life professional development is not that different from real life professional development courses, although ‘attendance’ from members in a motorway service station near Exeter, and at 1am in Thailand would not have been achieved without the technology.

Naaceblogs made its debut in 2006 at the Naace Strategic Conference. The 2007 All Members’ Autumn Conference will be the fourth conference blog. Comment on the sessions before the conference whether you are intend to be there or not; and during the conference whether you attend or take part from a distance. Last year, David Warlick, the famous US technology educator commented on his blog:

“this is one of the best reported and recorded small conferences I’ve ever seen.”

Welcome to the revamped version of NaaceBlogs for 2007. As an opening post it seems fitting that the Chair of Naace should address the masses. Terry Freedman offers his thoughts on the recent BETT Show.

(Via Leon Cych’s excellent Learn 4 Life blog.)