Skills day 2008: what did you think?
Thanks to everybody who came to this year’s event and helped to make it such an interesting and stimulating day. We’d love to get your feedback - what worked and what didn’t - on everything from the venue to the programme. Feel free to leave your comments in the box below or, if you’d prefer, email them to Penny Windebank (JISCmail) P.A.Windebank@rl.ac.uk.
Skills day 2008: events in the virtual world
Andrew Powell - Eduserv
Andy asked: Does Second Life have a role to play in supporting real life events or a place to have events in their own right?
The whole presentation is taking place inside SL – it is in and of SL - but what we see will apply to other virtual worlds.
Will talk in three parts:
Introduction to SL
SL for events – my experiences
Discussions
SL participants were asked to brainstorm about what does and doesn’t work within SL. In the meantime, the RL audience get an introduction to SL.
SL is a 3D virtual world - a multi-user Virtual Environment (MUVE). It is a commercial offering (run by Linden Labs) and largely proprietory as not many open standards in this area but LL does have a commitment to using open source. World is populated by avatars, also known as residents in SL context. To join to go to the website, choose a name and password and download the client software onto your computer. Quite stringent technical requirements so need the hardware you would need for a heavy computer game if it is to run smoothly. Worth bearing in mind in educational context. Free to sign up but have to pay to own land though subscription rates are low. if you want to own a whole island (eg if you are a uni) then could cost several hundred dollars a month.
You can build things – Andy demos this in his building on Eduserv island by knocking together a quick stool. Very Ikea. He then drops the stool on the head of one of the workshop participants. Does he have public liability insurance?
Skills Day 2008: we now have a tag
It is JCSGSkills08.
If you’ve been blogging this event, please do add the tag
Skills day 2008: panel session: pains and gains
The discussion saw some interesting differences of opinions on the ‘amplified conference’ - read on to find out more…
Andy: Have heard nothing about web 2.0 and how that is changing events. For the kind of events I go to now – blogging, Twitter, Flickr etc are drastically changing the way we do things. An amplified conference is where everything gets tagged and everything can get pulled together after the event and it brings huge benefits. No tag for this conference?
Is web 2.0 changing the way we approach things?
Paul: The event today was really a response to requirements and needs for this community. Perhaps in the future the next event may cover these kinds of questions.
To answer your question, the amplified event is on the rise. We have been doing it for three years and are very careful with tagging etc. It is easier for us to do this – our audience are very tech savvy. AT our last event we had about 25 Twitterers. And I think increasingly events are going to have to think ab out it. More appropriate for some events than for others but again I go back to audience and each organiser knows their audience. But in the domain I work in, absolutely.
Skills day 2008: 12 months on!
Paul Hollins – Cetis
Paul begins by entertaining the room by introducing Ming as not a social network tool the story of heroic Flash Gordon and the evil Emperor Ming, the nemesis of Flash Gordon.
He went on to discuss Tools, technology: “It’s about the audience stupid”.
Read more
Skills day 2008: Wimba
Bernard Aghedo – RSC London
RSC London have been using Wimba classroom and Bernard explained the benefits of using the tool and then gave a short demonstration.
Download Bernard’s presentation as a PDF:
Bernard Aghedo: Wimba
Skills day 2008: instant presenter
Cary MacMahon - TechDis, and Alistair McNaught
Cary set up Instant Presenter to demonstrate the tool, and then Alistair presented on accessible email from Winchester, using Instant Presenter.
Download Alistair’s presentation as a PDF:
Alistair McNaught: accessible communication
Read more
Skills day 2008: Elluminate
Maryse Fisher & Malcolm Bodley – RSC Eastern
Maryse: RSC Eastern has used online tools for a couple of years for smaller events – have used Instanter Presenter (IP) and trialled some others. Have a licence to try out Elluminate for this year and will run a pilot. Want it to be a collaboration with other RSCs. One of the features we are very interested in is the accessibility features and working with Techdis to really give this a trial.
Malcolm: used IP a few times but only had Elluminate for a short time. Have been asked to explain how the experiences we have with those two and the kind of pitfalls encountered with this kind of delivery.
Skills day 2008: are your events accessible?
Cary MacMahon - TechDis
Download Cary’s presentation as a PDF:
Cary MacMahon: are your events accessible?
I’m the new JISC Techdis coordinator – “the new Sue”!
Techdis is all about Accessibility = usability = success
Skills day 2008: making your stand work for you
Theresa Summerfield - Intute
Download Theresa’s presentation:
Theresa Summerfield: making your stand work for you (ppt)
At Intute we wanted to formalise our approach to events. We do subject specific as well as generic ones and we really wanted to improve for the JISC conference and now we have these guidelines which have worked for a number of conferences.
Skills day 2008: an event manager’s tool bag
Grace Porter - JISC
Download Grace’s presentation as a PDF:
Grace Porter: an event manager’s tool bag
Download Grace’s sample budget (Excel spreadsheet)
One day event sample budget
I’m an Events Coordinator so help to manage and coordinate the range of JISC events including the biggest, the JISC conference. Also provide advice and guidance to the executive and the wider JISC community.
There are lots of you here that do know what you’re doing but I’m going to show you my virtual toolbag. It’s online and designed for everybody so everybody here can access the wiki and my toolbag and contribute to it aswell.
Skills day 2008: organise your way to success
Wendy Salmon - JANET
Download Wendy’s presentation as a PDF:
Organise Your Way to Success by Wendy Salmon
Download Wendy’s Sample List of Event Tasks (Word)
Sample List of Event Tasks
The last time I stood up in front of a group of people I used to ask people if they’d washed their hands and if they’d turned their ovens on…Old habits die hard but I have managed 12 years at JANET UK without having to do a presentation at all so now have much more sympathy with our speakers.
I came from a background of teaching and took time out for a singing career then time to get a proper job and thought the job at JANET would be a good way of combining skills of teaching and organising skills.
Easy to be daunted by the prospect of organising events but whatever I say today can be scaled up or scaled down and adapted.
Skills day 2008: welcome
Penny Windebank and Dicky Maidment-Otlet – Chair of JISC M & C Forum
Penny Windebank welcomed the delegates and provided some background on the JISC Services marketing and communication forum. The forum is made up of a membership of representatives from JISC and Services. Meet 4 times a year and objective is to look at opportunities where Services can engage with each other. All Services should be represented by somebody. If not, talk to Penny or Dicky.
The Forum discussed what to do for this Skills day and a number of suggestions were put forward. Decided on Event Management as an opportunity to share skills and experiences and look from a very traditional perspective to more innovative areas.
Invite all to share thoughts and experiences on the blog and to participate in the ‘pain and gains’ panel. Hector will be doing a pod and vodcast surgery over the lunch hour and all are invited.
Dicky thanked the delegates for coming. The things we are talking about are all things that Service people felt we should talk about and although presenting things to you, we welcome feedback during the day and after the event about how you do things and how to do better. Not giving the ‘correct’ template but asking people to tell us how they do things. Great to get people like Grace and Wendy who are usually on the other side of the fence being in the hot seat as presenters.
Hector also runs all the JISC blogs and wikis and all the JISC blogs are available and been through lots of trials and all running very well. For an example of a very good one, look at the Digitisation blog. To find out more, see Hector at lunchtime.
Skills day 2008: updated programme
Matt Jukes is, sadly, unable to join us in Oxford tomorrow so the programme has been revised. Please download the programme below (as PDF or Powerpoint) to ensure you have the most up to date version.
Skills day 2008: Join us in Second Life
Andy Powell from Eduserve will be talking about how virtual worlds such as Second Life can be used to support events. He’ll be doing the talk in-world to demonstrate just what is possible - join him and us at Virtual Congress Centre on Eduserve Island from 15.30. Look out for his Virtual World Watch Moo cards at the RL event too!