In response to John Gibbs comment about virtual conference members of this list might be interested in our experiences of hosting e/merge 2004, an online conference about educational technology in Southern Africa. We had 163 participants from 7 southern Africa countries, as well as some key people from further afield.
Our one key note speaker presented a real-time video-streamed opening keynote address to a roomful of people at the conference opening physically located in Cape Town (South Africa), while national and international online participants engaged in text-based dialogue with both him and the participants physically present! Although there are savings in many ways, making such a conference a success is also a lot of work. We have written up our experiences, including in the editorial to the special issue of the International Journal of Education and Development using ICTs which recently published 10 of the papers originally presented online. Our experiences were so positive that we will be running e/merge 2006 next year! Laura Quoting John Hibbs <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > At 3:26 PM -0500 9/15/05, Taran Rampersad wrote: > >John Hibbs wrote: > >Why is an ICT conference not held virtually? Why do I have to travel > > to Washington to participate? or listen? or view? What century do we > > live in? > > 15 Sep 2005 15:26:11 -0500 Taran Rampersad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >So that's where I left my drum! :-) Maybe it's just not easy enough > >for people to organize a conference virtually yet... or maybe they > >don't know how easy it is? > > > Subscribers to the leading listserv in the distance education world > have heard me beat this drum for almost a decade. The largest, most > prestigious (?) distance ed conferences have very little virtual > component; yet the leaders talk the talk about the wonders of their > deliveries. My wee voice has been a lonely one. > > Perhaps the DDN should take up one more cudgel -- that it should > beat up on those who hold large physical conferences advocating ICT; > but are unwilling to offer same virtually? If we at the "leading > edge" don't walk the walk -- who will? > -- > John W. Hibbs > http://www.bfranklin.edu/johnhibbs > > _______________________________________________ > DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list > DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org > http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide > To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with > the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message. > ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
