I remember promising to post an overview of the details of my key note talk that I presented at the ICEUTE 2011 Conference in Salamanca during October. The title of my talk was: “Applying Social Software in Education: Lessons Learnt from Using Blogs as an Organisational Learning Approach“. The primary argument of my talk was to advocate that there is much that educational practitioners can learn from the experiences in industry in terms of how Web 2.0 tools have been introduced and applied in organisational settings. The basis of my talk was formed from a recent case study that I performed in a large financial corporation that introduced blogs into its ICT Division to be used for the purposes of information and knowledge sharing among its project teams. Based on the experiences of the company and the findings of my research I argue that there are plenty of parallels, in addition to certain differences, that can be drawn with how Web 2.0 tools are introduced and applied in organisations and also in educational institutions to support and promote learning. I am now in the process of writing up my findings with a view to publishing them and have a few target journals in mind.
I have recently returned from the International Conference on EUropean Transnational Education (20th – 21st October) which was held in the beautiful city of Salamanca in Spain. The conference was actually held in one of the many colleges associated with the University of Salamanca so it was good to have a brief experience of the university life at Spain’s oldest university.
There were many different streams to this conference but the central underlying theme related to the use and application of information technologies within education. I was fortunate enough to present a key note speech at the conference. I will provide details of this in a future post.
In addition to providing my key note talk I was also involved in chairing the Web2.0 special session which involved both myself and my fellow EU Project partners disscussing the various project deliverables of our project. The prevalent theme to emerge from the session was that the Web2.0 platform that we had developed had been successfully engaged by teachers during the pilot study and that our community of practice on Facebook continues to grow.
The theme for E.C.L.O.’s 17th International Conference is: “Learning Excellence: A Survival Guide in Troublesome Times.” Those interested in contributing a paper and presenting should contact jim.jack@eclo.org. The current conference submission deadline is: 23rd December 2009 of a 200 word contribution abstract.
Staying on the themes of conferences, E.C.L.O. (European Consortium for the Learning Organisation) have announced where their 17th annual International conference will be held. The location shall be Istanbul on 19th-21st May 2010. Conference themes and further details to be announced.
Details of the forthcoming OLKC (Organizational Learning, Knowledge & Capabilities) Conference have been confirmed. The conference will be held in Boston, Massachusetts, USA between the dates of June 3 – June 6, 2010. Conference themes and further details to be announced.
The ICICKM 6th International Conference on Intellectual Capital, Knowledge Management & Organisational Learning will be hosted at McGill University, Montreal, Canada, 1-2 October, 2009.
Unfortunately I am unable to attend the OLKC 2009 in Amsterdam, April 26/28. I feel that this would have been a very worthwhile conference to attend in terms of my research, also due to the inclusion of the ‘Round table sessions’ and ‘PhD workshops.’ Hopefully I can be present at a future OLKC Conference to discuss my research, gain feedback etc.
E.C.L.O. (European Consortium for the Learning Organisation) will have their 16th International Conference held in Hertogenbosch, Netherlands, June 18/19 2009.
Having been to the previous two E.C.L.O. Conferences, I can say from experience that there is always a very genuine supportive and constructive atmosphere at E.C.L.O. Conferences and they are a very good way of networking from an academic and practitioner perspective. I found my E.C.L.O. conference experiences to be very academically productive indeed.
Gavin Baxter
