2010 March 12 « Martin’s Weblog

The Meaning Of London Educamp One

The meaning of London Educamp One.

The unconference event has been around for quite a while but the emergence timing of the first London Educamp is very meaningful now.

There are many inconvenient truths about education, technology and the use of technology in education. Among these “truths” are that much of education happens the same way it did 50 years ago but we spend so much more on it – IT suites, “smartboards”, VLEs etc. Technology has mostly been used to reinforce and lock-in established ways of operation. Despite Web 2.0 we still operate as education 1.0

The inconvenient questions for education today are whether it needs to change, wants to change, whether it can change and what that change could be. The inconvenient truth for technology is that technology alone is not enough – there needs to be interaction and social engagement.

The Websquared idea offers one model for change: social-technological engagement – the application of Web 2.0 “philosophies” to the real world and society.

London Educamp one was a working example the application of Web 2.0 “philosophies” – a user driven, flat, open, self service, participative “beta” event.

My impressions from Educamp.

The themes I came across were:

a – Miindset shift – new technology is available it’s whether you choose to use it and how you use it

b – Amazing technology is becoming available to everyone, its often free and easy to use, it creates a level playing field

c – Identity and the concept of Identity 2.0 is an opportunity to engage through personalisation, ownership and sharing but a problem for institutions needing control and verification.

There was a full mix of session styles – my favourites were those without technology using the unpresentation style.

My favorite was – Diane Brewster: “The Sussex Creativity Zone, innovative teaching and learning in a technology rich, flexible, learning space”. This was a great session - Diane unpresented while mingling with us around a table of hands on material - standing rather than sitting was more dynamic but chairs were there as well – it was a very fluid and natural. This session summed up “the meaning of London Educamp one”