Kayaking is Underway

[mich...@chariot.net.au]

Check http://www.flickr.com/photos/leighblackall/ - FLNW3 is underway.
Leigh is posting from the water to taunt/entertain those who are ailing
and hope to catch up with them tomorrow.

And sooner or later we will start posting things here that are more than
travel and logistics notes.

- Michael

[Nancy White]

Yay, thanks for spotting this fellow sickie. I'm baking brownies for the meetup tomorrow and conserving energy. Walking home from the herbalist today I passed a garage sale with a copy of the Whole Earth Millenium Catalog for 50 cents. With sustainability as a very loose theme, it felt apropos to pick it up to stash in the trip bag.

I have been in a philosophical mood (this always happens when I want to avoid feeling sorry for myself for missing something - in this case the camaradarie and kayaking up in BC today) and what struck me was our ability to create and sustain relationships with each other despite difference. I experienced the OpenEd 09 conference from a distance, yet, knowing many of the suspects involved, I had not just an intellectual, but an emotive (is that the word?) experience - even from a distance.

Connection, even love, sustains over distance when we make the choice and intent to do so.

Waving from Seattle

N

[Derek Chirnside]

Hi Nancy, I'm feeling a little Philosophical as well, always happens after a conference, OpenEd was probably one of the best conferences I have ever been to.

No major sponsors who needed special sympathy.courtesy keynotes, no bags, no paper
90 minute lunchbreaks and no onsite food.
Cool venue.
Wireless AND power points.
Twitter.  (never been in a tweeted conference before - often we struggle to have enough power supplies and wireless)
Continuous coffee
15 minutes between sessions.
Great level of engagement, dialogue, debate and conversation

(All this meant for example the organisers actually were not distracted with details and able to chat)

More out of my depth and well behind on the issues and questions here than normal.  Was basically ignorant of some of the history and timeline.  The perils of beng a dabbler once again.

I was interested in a little of the Twitter stream around the conference: "Blog about a conference I'm not even at. Is that inappropriate?" - LisaRead

- Derek
(Sitting in Bowen Island library, listening to live music and catching up with myself)

2009/8/16 Nancy White <nancy...@gmail.com>

[mich...@chariot.net.au]

Nancy, Derek et al - if I came away from a conference feeling
philosophical it would be because I found it disappointing! This was not
the case with the Open Ed conference. As Derek wrote, "Great level of
engagement, dialogue, debate and conversation." Sustained throughout the
3 days.

My normal conference type is elearning events. The sorts of issues that
successful implementation of elearning throws up are complex enough. It
seems (and this is an outsider's perspective) that Open Ed has those
issues PLUS politics and social justice. There was a sense of people
being on a mission.

And somewhere in here is the connection with the thing that is the
Future of Learning in a Networked World. I'll come clean - I attended
the Open Ed partly to assuage my sense of guilt that I live in a
prosperous country that is wired and connected (despite many
Australians' complaints about the quality and speed of those
connections). But I'm afraid it didn't help much. Mostly what we saw
were intelligent well-meaning white folks having intense and purposeful
conversations.

So maybe I should just explore how the privileged use their networks for
learning and leave it at that? :-)

- Michael
===========================

[Nancy White]

Michael, as i was looking at OpenEd pictures and streams, I too saw white males in predominance. I tweeted something about this early on. Even in a land of diversity (N America in this case) we still find these gaps. This is an age old question.

I hope we talk about it more.

[alexanderhayes]

http://learningnetworkedworld.blogspot.com/2009/08/round-3.html

[Nancy White]

mmmm.....  nice Sunday morning treat, Alex. Thanks.

I'm sitting here in Seattle, mostly packed up. Even some nice beer ready to slide into the cooler then slide it into the car. Awaiting word from those up in BC that they are on their way. I'll head north as they head south.

I was delighted to finally find the little hiking guide for the Olympic Peninsula, reminding me that there is value in codified as well as uncodified knowledge. I added espresso powder and cinnamon to the brownies - beyond the recipe, but forgot my oven runs hot so they over cooked a bit. We need both to be sustainable, eh?

I am also sitting here reflecting on how best to share out for myself as we go. I don't know yet. BUt it is a sunny day and that is a good omen. I'm jittery with a bit too much iced coffee.

Ciao for now

[mich...@chariot.net.au]

From the Vancouver end - I'm about to go and meet the mariners and
expect to greet people who are blissed out by 24 hours on water. Still,
my landlubbing self is feeling much better and looking forward to
finally catching up with Nancy. Brownies and beers sound great - I must
be feeling better.

- Michael
=====================

On Mon, Aug 17th, 2009 at 1:47 AM, Nancy White <nancy...@gmail.com>
wrote:

[anne paterson]

Inspired by the on-water theme and Leigh's photos - I wanted to share todays activity with you! 7 mins of 3 hours of video taken with the EDUPOV glasses. Lots of training video taken - but this isnt one of them. I downloaded the files from the glasses to the computer and went to bed - a few hours later my daughter (the skipper) woke me to show me this. Some people may find the language offensive after the first three minutes - www.whitechocolatesailing.blogspot.com      Thanks to EDUPOV for the camera glasses! This was our first outing using them!

Anne Paterson

[alexanderhayes]

Glad to hear your feeling better Michael.

I received my Mobolizethis09 itinerary today and I must be feeling a
little better also.

Have a great day.

On Aug 17, 2:22 am, micha...@chariot.net.au wrote:
> From the Vancouver end - I'm about to go and meet the mariners and
> expect to greet people who are blissed out by 24 hours on water. Still,
> my landlubbing self is feeling much better and looking forward to
> finally catching up with Nancy. Brownies and beers sound great - I must
> be feeling better.
>
> - Michael
> =====================
>

> On Mon, Aug 17th, 2009 at 1:47 AM, Nancy White <nancy.wh...@gmail.com>