The myths about youth and technology

The Berkman Center at Harvard has an interesting wiki discussion started concerning the myths about youth and their online presence: Digital Natives:

Myth #1: The online world presents a wholly new and completely different set of issues for youth we must address.

Many of the issues cropping up with children and young people playing, being, and living online – from cyberbullying, to information evaluation, to online civic engagement - are the same as age-old offli--e issues, however filtered through a new medium with new possibilities, and new considerations.

Good stuff! It sounds like the Berkman@10_conference is going to be really interesting. I wish I could be there-- but I've been way too busy. I do hope to attend some through their Web casts.

And yes, the wiki is yet another MediaWiki site.

Virtual Worlds and New Realities live on SLCN

The final panel presentation at the Emory University Virtual Worlds and New Realities conference: Possible Futures of Virtual Worlds and Society will be broadcast live on February 11 on the Second Life Cable Network at 11a SLT. Should be good!

I'll be watching, and if you want to chat: kevin.j.gamble@gmail.com

Second Life Conference: Libraries, Education and Museums

Here's another in-world conference in Second Life that you might want to attend: The Virtual Worlds: Libraries, Education and Museums Conference.

As I've mentioned before, if you haven't attended a conference in Second Life you should definitely give it a try. The conferences I have attended previously have been very effective, and it beats the heck out of travel, hotels, being away from home... This conference costs $8000 Lindens (around $30) which is a heck of a lot cheaper than face-to-face conferences.

The Virtual Worlds: Libraries, Education and Museums Conference will be held in Second Life at the New Media Consortium Conference Center (NMC) on March 8, 2008. Registration is 8000 lindens (equivalent of $30 USD) payable in lindens to avatar Valencia Lane in Second Life.


The purpose of this conference is to provide a gathering place for librarians, information professionals, educators, museologists, and others to learn about and discuss the educational, informational, and cultural opportunities of virtual worlds.

If you decide to attend please say hello. I'll be attending as Jonathan Foss.

Science Bloggers Conference follow-up

Yesterday I attended the North Carolina Bloggers Conference at Sigma Xi in the Research Triangle Park. It was an incredible day in every regard, excepting that the wifi sucked. Thank goodness I had the iPhone and only a somewhat sucky EDGE connection. I'm attending a follow-on session this morning at a local coffee shop so this report will be brief. I wanted to follow-up on yesterday's post on what I had hoped to experience at the conference.

My goals for the day:

#1 Find better, and earlier sources of research articles: Failed. I was pretty much already tapped into everything that was mentioned. People were high on EurekAlert, as am I, and this seems like as good of time as any to give it a shoutout. It's a wonderful one-stop location for information on the latest published research. Anyway, where my goal wasn't accomplished I did receive affirmation that I wasn't totally out of the loop. So this was a positive.

Learn more about Science 2.0: This goal was accomplished. The first session I attended was on Open-Science. Unfortunately, this session's conversation was totally about Open-Access and never got into the more interesting Science 2.0 happenings. As the day wore on though, the other aspects of Open-Science were well discussed, especially Open-Data. Unrelated to the conference, but huge for Open-Science was yesterday's announcement by Google: Google to Host Terabytes of Open-Source Science Data.

Meet some interesting people: Mission accomplished! I had more interesting conversations than I can begin to count. It was also an opportunity to meet many Twitter friends which is always fun. The conference was attended by people from all over the world, and being an unmeeting everyone had ample opportunities to join the conversations. I will discuss many of the people I met in subsequent posts.

Finally, I want to direct you to researchblogging.org a new aggregator of blog posts on peer-reviewed research articles that was announced at the conference. If you're wanting a snap-shot of what's going on in the science blogosphere this is going to be an awesome site. The site was rushed out to premiere it yesterday, and it still has a few rough edges, for example the feed isn't working. I've registered with the site (breaking my 2008 pledge of not registering with any site not supporting OpenID). As I "attempt" to do more science blogging I'm looking forward to contributing to this site.

If you are at all into science and blogging you need to put this conference on your calendar for next year. It's on mine for sure! Now I need to get...

North Carolina Science Blogging Conference

I'm attending the North Carolina Science Bloggers Conference today in the Research Triangle Park. It's very cool that this event is happening here, and that I have the opportunity to participate. I enjoy blogging about research findings. I don't do as much science blogging as I would like, but it's definitely something on my bucket list (which I haven't written yet).

My hope for today is to find some methods to tap into the flow of research information prior to it being published. For me, the lag between when the science is done and when it is eventually reported is unacceptably long. By the time I see the research it's often just not that relevant. I know the information is flowing and I'm hoping to find some methods to tap into that flow earlier.

My second hope is to learn more about Science 2.0. I know that science, just like every other aspect of knowledge creation is moving beyond the traditional institutions. I'll be listening carefully today for conversations that broach user generated research. (UGR?)

Lastly, I'm looking to meet some really interesting people. There are several sessions where I will have the chance to talk with people with similar interests. So more than anything, this will be a real opportunity to learn from others. I'm also hoping that I'm not just a taker, but that I have something of value to contribute.

There are several opportunities for people at a distance to join the conversations. So hopefully some of you will drop in and participate. I'm going to try to survive on my Nokia N810, and be online continuously. You can chat me up at kevin.j.gamble@gmail.com

I need to get...

BlogHer in-world conference

Here's your chance to attend a really good conference in Second Life: BlogHer to hold two-day conference in-world

SUNSET BEACH -- The popular women's blog, BlogHer, recently announced plans to expand its real world blogging conference to Second Life. BlogHer '07, titled "A World of Difference," will take place simultaneously in Chicago and in SL on July 27 and 28. Co-founder Elisa Camahort and SL newbie (EliRose Juno in SL) said the move to SL provides the opportunity for BlogHer members to attend virtually if they cannot travel to the physical conference.

I've attended one other conference in-world and it was wonderful. I can envision the day when having simultaneous 1L and virtual conferences will be the standard practice. I'm looking forward to attending this one.

Second Life International Conference to be held inworld

This Second Life International Conference: Best Practices in Teaching, Learning and Research is being held at a number of SL inworld locations:

The conference will be held on May 25, 2007 in venues all over the Second Life world, with exciting presentations, vendors and exhibitors, and everything an educator needs to know to get started exploring the possibilities for teaching, learning, and research in Second Life!

I'll be attending for sure. I'm still thinking about whether to do a presentation. It's a pretty short deadline...