Presentation by Rebecca Ferguson and Gill Clough (co-authored by Anesa Hosein and Doug Clow) at CAL 2011, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK. April 2011.
ENGLISH 7_Q4_LESSON 2_ Employing a Variety of Strategies for Effective Interp...
Emerging practice: the liveblog as a tool for learning
1. Emerging practice: the liveblog as a tool for learning Rebecca Ferguson, The Open University, UK Gill Clough, The Open University, UK Doug Clow, The Open University, UK Anesa Hosein, Liverpool Hope University Participate here – http://cloudworks.ac.uk/cloud/view/5321
2. What is a liveblog? A liveblog consists of a series of contemporaneous notes of an event arranged chronologically and shared online by an individual author in order to support learning.
Consideration of livbelogging – reflective account by four practitioners An emerging field – some disciplines and conferences use this widely, some have never encountered it What are the advantages, and what are the problems? What does it add to the learning of the liveblogger, the presenter, and the reader?
It isn’t a carefully edited account produced later It captures the flavour of the event by following the pattern it takes It isn’t a series of private notes – it is produced to share It captures one person’s perspective – though other perspectives may be added for comment And it does this in order to support learning – it isn’t, for example, the same as a synchronous online sports commentary
A ‘traditional’ liveblog – in that it is in a blog Some of the features of this medium – we gain a sense of place through the description of the venue and through the picture. Livelogs can be tagged and categorised – so they can be linked with materials in other media linked by the same hashtag They can be linked directly to other material, through hyperlinks You can comment on this liveblog and add your own interpretation – whether you are at the conference or thousands of miles away You can engage in legitimate peripheral participation – helps us to understand what it means to be a lecturer at The Open University.
Another type of blog – this time from the Cloudworks site. Cloudworks is an open site, run from The Open University. Provides an opportunity to link resources around a topic or event. Good place to livelog if you don’t have a blog, or if you want to create a communal resource Several people can liveblog about the same event at the same time in the same place, to create a multilayered account
Liveblogs – particularly liveblogs in Cloudworks – allow us to compare how different people have understood the message, and what they have taken away from it. How does the same talk sound to an early-career researcher, a lecturer and a professor? The three liveblogs give us a multilayered account of this talk – and of the speaker
Third medium for the liveblog – Twitter. More difficult medium for a liveblog due to the need for continuous prose in a liveblog, and due to people’s patience with large amounts of comments in a short space of time. Also more fleeting – less likely to return to a set of Tweets
Normally you have to be at an event to find out what the audience asked and how they were answered. Liveblog captures elements that would otherwise be lost – and makes them available for other people.
OK – not a brilliant example, but that’s partly because lack of understanding or lack of interest is found in the spaces
Liveblogs definitely extend reach. This chart shows eight presentations at a conference at the OU in March last year Each had a cloud in Cloudworks. The Conf column shows how many people signed up to attend on the day (where known). The subsequent columns show how many people have viewed the associated cloud. The cloud itself extends the presentation’s reach – but may do so in a cursory way, with a short abstract. The liveblog extends what is represented The three most viewed clouds here are the ones which were liveblogged
Liveblogging our development of the grand challenges so that people outside the workshop could be involved, see what was happening and contribute if they wished
An example from the livechat of an online conference. Doug and others are liveblogging and posting links to their liveblogs – other conference participants are reading and responding
For those in room - Noisy For speaker – potentially unnerving For typist – losing time to reflect Need to take these into account when planning to liveblog. Often worth discussing with the presenters / organisers in advance
For those in room - Noisy For speaker – potentially unnerving For typist – losing time to reflect Need to take these into account when planning to liveblog. Often worth discussing with the presenters / organisers in advance