Through the keyhole

The Apostle Paul once wrote that he could see things 'through a glass, darkly'. He was trying, I feel, to capture what it felt like to see things, but without complete clarity. And I know what he meant, because this week, when I should have been over in Gdansk to speak at the European Distance and E-learning Network (EDEN) Conference, I am sat at home recuperating after keyhole surgery. As I have previously written, EDEN is one of my favourite annual events, and I have attended at least 7 over the last 10 years or so. It is a delightful meeting place for e-learning professionals and academics, and although the quality of the presentations can be something of a curate's egg at times, a certain honesty and resilience pervade the proceedings. The settings are always grand, and the company is erudite and entertaining. It is quite a melting pot of ideas, and a number of notable trans-national collaborations have been spawned there over the years.

But I have to follow the event remotely, from my sitting room, using participatory media this year. I am following the conference blog which I am happy to see is this year carrying some interesting video clips that people have thoughtfully posted up. These give a sense of participation - almost a social presence, without actually being there. But it is all a little like looking through the keyhole (if I can use that term in two different ways in the same post). You aren't there, and what you can see and apprehend is limited due to the distance and lack of presence. The media can ameloriate some of the barriers, but it also imposes constraints.

Twitter may be the best participatory media as a conference backchannel, and I have previously eulogised over its affordances in this area. I feel that it has more immediacy than blogging even with video clips embedded. This is because it provides a constant stream of snapshots (some of which really are snapshots thanks to Twitpic et al) and you can respond in kind, and enjoy almost synchronous dialogue even though you are not physically present. Also, the limit of 140 characters encourages accuracy .... so brevity forces clarity. We worked this well at the recent Plymouth e-Learning Conference, trending in at number 3 at one point due to the high volume of tweets. Many people who couldn't attend reported that it was the next best thing to being there. Twitter provided quite a large keyhole to look through, in fact.

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