Friday was Moose Camp. What’s Moose Camp? Well, it’s like Bar Camp. Which is?
Ok, have you ever sat around in a bar and tried to pitch someone on an idea and you started drawing it out on the back of a napkin? Have you ever come up with the perfect solution to some problem while you were sitting around with your friends? That would be bar camp, moose camp, whatever.
My first session was Edubloggerhootenanny.
Edubloggerhootenanny
Alan Levine, D’Arcy Norman, Scott Leslie, and Brian Lamb were the conversation facilitators. The session was mostly for educators who are using blogs as teaching tools. It seemed to me that there are two types: those working with K-12 and those working with university and college students. Many of the issues are the same though: do you prescribe blogging, how do you deal with students who must submit blog work in multiple classes, how do you grade participation, etc.
Here are my random thoughts on edublogging:
Educators should view blogging as blog reading and blog writing. Not just blog writing.
In a classroom setting, the first step in introducing blogging could be reading blogs then discussing how to filter what is “true”, what isn’t; why do we think one voice has authority over others; how do we understand what we read; what narratives do we create from reading others.
Discussion. Remember blogs are about conversation.
Blogging should be incorporated the same way extracurricular reading is.
Give students the tools to understand how to find sites they enjoy, how to read and judge validity or authority, how to use critical thinking skills, and how to respond to the stories we read.
Real Time Reporting with Now Public
Next session was Real Time Reporting with Now Public. Michael Tippett gave a good presentation on NowPublic.com, which is about sharing the news. He demonstrated how the site works and what things you can do as a citizen journalist. The site looked cool and seemed easy to use.
AJAX for Geeks
It was that kind of day.
I enjoyed AJAX for Geeks with Dave Johnson. There was code on the screen.
AJAX is all about the page refresh. You no longer need it. For example, when you are filling out a form and you incorrectly enter your password, the page is sent to the server, the server returns the error, and your entire screen needs to refresh in order to show the error message. With AJAX that doesn’t happen. Just small amounts of data flow back and forth, not the full page. With AJAX, the error message just appears on the screen.
Flickr and Google Maps are AJAX examples.
Structured Blogging and Microformats
Structured Blogging and Microformats with Bryan Rieger was in the afternoon. The basic idea is that a web post is like a block. As we produce more and more posts, they act as more and more little blocks. The thing you cannot do with a block is distinguish whether it is a text musing or an event listing or an image. If there were tags within the post that defined, for example, an event title, the event description, the event time and place, then you could do more with that information. For example, if you came across an event listing, instead of copying and pasting it into your calendar, you could somehow just one click import it.
It makes more sense to think of these types of posts and metadata as better for machines rather than humans, but there were arguments in favour of the human use.
Podcasting and Video Blogging
Podcasting and Video Blogging was presented by Robert Sanzalone. He told the group about DailyMotion.com, which apparently is the best video blogging site. You can upload your videos and it transcodes them and makes them available for download in multiple formats.
1 Minute Movie
Roland created a 1 Minute Movie with Photo to Movie, which costs $50 US and is better and easier than iMovie.
Photocamp
Although my descriptions of the sessions are getting shorter, this does not reflect my interest or enthusiasm for these sessions. I’m merely exhausted from the 2 days.
Back to Photocamp … it was a freeform discussion about photos at Photocamp with Kris Krug.
I now need to figure out the cool boost colour effect for my camera. We discussed aperture.
DabbleDB
DabbleDB.com demo. We created a database on the fly. The functions are really cool. Love the product but the import function was lacking and I’m skeptical about the export. As a tool though, really interesting and very very likeable.
In a side conversation, I learned that GMail and GTalk are beautifully linked and I need to dust off the GMail account.
Leadership Hacks
David Sifry of Technorati talked about leadership. It’s all about passion, the team, leading not managing, developing other leaders, preparing for scalability traps, back of the napkining it, remembering it’s a business not a clubhouse, vision + execution, failing fast and being of service.
After all of that I stumbled along to the evening BBQ in Stanley Park and ate 2 Chips Ahoy cookies, which, yes mom, did spoil my dinner.
All in all, a great day.
Yesterday was 
The Moose is totally loose!