msdm: mobile strategies of display & mediation

Pedagogical faultines is scheduled for next weekend at the waag society in amsterdam and as i’m preparing to attend and reading the program description , this note on methodology gets my attention: “Regarding the 2-day event the different speakers from India, Brazil and the Netherlands can fill in their session. We are thinking of a different way of approaching the event than the usual concept: a speech and at the end questions. It will be more participative and interactive, since we are here to discuss different, experimental, innovative, creative ways of conveying knowledge, thus we should also try it here.”

I’m as always interested in non-hierarchical conference formats, and wondering if this is potentially a two day unconference or other hybrid model of participatory knowledge-sharing. Characteristics of unconferences include:

-sessions content: driven by participants rather than by the organisers

-event structuring : developed in the day and/or day-by-day rather that set up in advance

-organisers’ role: setting up the purpose of the event and the guidelines for participants’ discussions

-presenters’ roles: to introduce themselves to the group and organise the agenda for the day

-participation processes: are varied and include

open space technology (tools to facilitate participants sharing of content throughout the meeting/s, with facilitator/s but no leader/s)

world cafe (conversations facilitated by hosts in tables of four and animated by moving chairs technique)

fishbowl (conversations facilitated by concentric arrangement of chairs in two circles with the external group observing and feeding back on the inner ring group)

- use of social media: are varied as well and may include

wikis as a tool for participants to post their ideas/topics ahead of the meeting

mobile media, the method elected for pedagogical faultlines: “speakers are stimulated to bring audiovisuals, or even a mobile version of their educational toolkit, so that participants can experiment hands on with the various educational methods.”

The complete two-day programme is now available online and its well structured programme, separates it from the above described unconferences. However the challenge to use experimental approaches to content delivery sounds promising.

I have just switched mobile phone and I’m now using a nokia n95 which presents several possibilities for file-sharing, from bluetooth to wireless lan so the next question I’ll be asking myself is we’ll have the opportunity to try mobile phones to share educational toolkits.

The blog on locative mobile games in education has recently included NONONO iPOD VO.2- NO OFFICIAL BUILDINGS NO LOCAL PEOPLE NO OIL FACILITIES (alongside Tactical Sound Garden Toolkit by Mark Shepard) in a list of ipod+locative educational games thus suggesting an educational use to the project which was not the original idea for the collaboration but that actually inspired me to expand it into one.