Official twit

I'm here in Berlin for day two of Online Educa where there are 2064 delegates from 91 countries. After the Germans, the Brits are by far the largest delegate contingent with almost 300 members (hurrah!!) Yesterday was frenetic to say the least. From a very early start to a very late end, concluding with another Edublogger meeting, there was so much to see, do and enjoy. There were several highlights in the day, including a live radio podcast by Pontydysgu team including Graham Attwell and Josie Fraser (who grabbed me for an impromptu interview in front of a few hundred people who were all patiently queuing for their coffee at the break. (pictured above, Josie interviews George Roberts from Oxford Brookes University). Several interesting conversations developed throughout the day, and I seemed to bump into just about everyone I had met previously at other events around the globe over the previous 18 months. Educa is like one massive people aggregator.

One of the best sessions I attended was the breakout session entitled 'MUVEs for the 21st Century', which in some ways was a follow up of last year's session we did as the Second Life team. Chaired by Shirley Williams (Reading University) and presented by a host of stars including Steven Warburton (Kings College London) and Graham Hibbert (Leeds Metropolitan University), it was a tour de force of all the latest activities and research into immersive and virtual learning environments. Themes included design issues, formal and informal learning and digital identity (avatar design). I was roped in to act as 'official twit' for the proceedings, and must have sent around 150 tweets out during the two hour session. I think I lost about a dozen followers as a result (I guess they resented what they considered to be spam) but gained an awful lot more on Twitter.

The evening was capped by the edublogger meeting where we discussed microblogging in all its guises. Issues included the question: Is microblogging eroding people's use of Facebook and other social networking tools, what can and should Twitter be used for, and networking through microblogging. I will say more about today's events when I have had a chance to catch my breath...