E-society: live blogging, cont.

We’re taking a brief break from the class, and since my laptop died, I’ve plugged it back in and will try to charge it fully.

The professor mentioned that there would be the opportunity this term to attend some conferences on the matters discussed in class, for those who are interested (that would be me). She mentioned two in particular, and the real kicker is that she thinks she could get the department here at FHM to pay at least for the conference registration fees, and possibly subsidize travel and accommodation, too.

The first is Community Informatics: Prospects for Communities and Action, November 5-7, 2007. I googled this immediately upon starting up my computer, but oddly enough, their website, CIPACO.org, is down. The Google cache of it is pretty useless, as all the links are dead and quick search of the page yields zero hits for “Nove.” That sucks. But I’m going to this, as it’s an excuse to travel to France–some town outside Florence, I believe the professor said.

The second conference was Online Educa Berlin: Technology Supported Learning and Training, November 30 and December 1. That I was able to find a website for, but oddly the website lists the dates as November 28-30. I’ll have to speak with the professor further about this, as perhaps there are special presentations she knows about or something, or maybe the conference dates have just changed since she last checked.

The final one discussed was one from here at the Munich University of Applied Sciences at which this professor, Patricia Arnold, will be presenting. The workshop is entitled Media Days: e-Learning 2.0: Hype or change of learning cultures? That’s the English rendition of the conference title provided on the syllabus for this class. That workshop will be offered only in German, as it’s meant primarily for students of this university others within Munich. But the other two should be offered in English, as they’re intended to be international conferences.

I couldn’t find a website for the Media Days conference, probably because I’m searching in English, but my attempts did yield a very interesting site called Networked Culture. The About section states:

Networked Cultures investigates the cultural transformations under way in Europe through examining the potentials and effects of networked spatial practices.

In class, we’re watching a YouTube video on the Telecentre Project. I’ve never heard of this particular undertaking, and I was ready to hate it, as I thought it would just be an “everybody needs Internet!!!” style effort, but I was surprised at the cultural sensitivity and emphasis on local rather than global communication networks. Thumbs up. The prof says she’s using this as a bit of exposition to the OLPC project. I really hope I get a chance to show up to class with one.