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WiFi and Social Software changes conferences and lectures

Lately conferences and lecture halls have started to get wireless connections to the Internet. Of course conference goers and students will use that connection to surf the web, read their email and most interesting: do messaging amongst participants.

Some lecturers may find it annoying, people seeming to be more focused on their keyboards and screens than on the carefully prepared speech and powerpoint slides.

Sure, they can be, if the lecturer is boring. They can also be a whole lot more focused on the topic than is apparent, exchanging links and comments or perhaps blogging notes in real time as the lecture goes on.

WiFi and Social Software allows for a whole new way of having discussions amongst participants of a lecture while the lecture still is going on. And why not? After all, it is the topic of the speaker that is interesting, not the speaker. Don't get me wrong, the speaker is important but mostly in order to provide a topic and backdrop for learning and exchange of ideas.

People have been doing this for ages. It is called "whispering" or "passing notes"...

What's happening isn't new. It's just been transformed by the new tools at our disposal. Before the wifi-enabled backchannel started to emerge, there was still a backchannel. You sat next to people you knew, and whispered to them. "Did you hear that?" "Hey, doesn't that remind you of xxx?" "What did she say?"

Liz Lawley continues:

Is it ego-crushing to walk to the front of a crowded room, step up to the podium, and look out at a sea of faces all focused on the screens and keyboards rather than your carefully prepared remarks? You betcha. But as speakers (and teachers) we have to get over that. We have to learn that complete control over our audience is seldom possible. We have to accept that we can't always demand and receive the full attention of the room we're in. We have to find ways to let people--at conferences, or in classrooms--learn from each other as well as from us.

In another article in New York Times Cory Doctorow put it like this:

"We're just moving the corridor into the room and time-shifting it by 30 minutes," said Mr. Doctorow, who takes notes and posts them to his Weblog, or blog, during conferences, enabling people to follow the speaker and Mr. Doctorow's take on the speaker at the same time.

I wonder if the lecture halls at Halmstad University are wired.

Social Software | Liz Lawley | step away from the podium

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