Done doing keynotes
George Siemens, elearnspace, September 8, 2013

George Siemenss reporgts that he will no longer be doing keynote addresses. "I don’t feel that I’m giving my audiences a sufficient quality of dialogue and insight to match the scope of the challenges facing education." Fair enough. I'd rather he gave up writing academic papers (but that's just me - I see academic papers as even less interactive than keynotes). I am not done with giving keynotes - but then, I put in far fewer hours in the air than George (even though I'm writing this post in a Heathrow restaraunt) and I think I approach keynotes differently. I don't have a standard talk; each keynote is unique. I have concepts and themes that I draw on and return to, of course. But I try to tackle a different question, and draw on different experiences, each time I talk.

Keynotes force me to think to a deadline, and most of my major concepts have come to fruition in that magic time between 5:00 a.m. and the time I take to the stage. But I'm also informed by the time between keynotes - stretches of weeks and often months - where I get my hands dirty writing software, write project proposals and defend them to very sceptical colleagues, pull together opin online courses, and of course write my daily newsletter (a process that brings me into contact with hundreds of educators every week). All this is to say that i don't think we've seen the last of George Siemens - probably we're seeing the beginning of his next phase. And that's a good thing.

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Three types of KM
Harold Jarche, September 5, 2013

I like this post but let's update it to match today's vernacular (because, you know, 'KM' is so 2000s). Harold Jarche points to the very useful distinction between 'Big KM' and 'Personal KM'. To update this, replace the word 'KM' with 'Data' - this gives us a range between 'Big Data' and 'Personal Data'. Now, everybody is talking about Big Data (so much so that I feel I need to capitalize the words). But as the useful diagram suggests, Big Data is suitable for simple domains, best practices and explicit knowledge. That's where learning analytics using big data will take us. But the much more interesting and useful analytics will be found using personal data, resulting in complex design, emergent practices and implicit knowledge. So why aren't people working here? Well it's like that guy pushing his lawn mower up and down his paved driveway - "it's a lot easier than pushing it though the grass," he explains.

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RadioActive: Inclusive Informal Learning through Internet Radio and Social Media
Graham Attwell, Pontydysgu.org, September 5, 2013

As a lonstanding afficiado of web radio, the RadioActive project is of intrinsic interest to me. This post summarizes a presentation from Andrew Ravenscroft, Casey Edmonds and James Dellow (it should be noted that post author Graham Attwell is also active in the RadioActive project). "RA-Eur aims to investigate and develop innovative technology-enabled ways to engage disadvantaged and excluded people in learning environments that offer them the opportunity to develop and enhance digital competencies and employability skills that are necessary and valued in the world of work." I wish I knew more - the project team has spent a lot of time writing papers and doing conference presentations, but we see almost none of the work on the project website.

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