Thursday, February 22, 2007

Allanah meets and greets David in Rotorua

Listening Live to David Warlick via skype over the internet how cool is that. Allanah King has her laptop at a workshop on RSS being given by David Warlick in New Zealand at this very moment.


David's talk ranges over a variety of Web 2.0 technology and how relevant it is to teachers. He discusses the use of copying RSS feeds into aggregators in order to take the 'leg work'out of keeping your links up to date. He also talks about 'tagging' of blog entries and flickr photosets.
I hope that David will not think it too much of a liberty for me to podcast the part of his talk that I managed to listen to - fascinating stuff ( it was almost like being there in person !!!) enjoy...



I have now had some time to reflect on what happened last night, and it is quite an amazing story to me as I come to terms with the 'flat earth' concept.
I had carried out a skype conversation live with Allanah King while she was talking to teachers about the global aspect of podcasting which in itself is quite a feat of technology that would have entailed a huge amount of pre-planning just a few short years ago. The conference called Learning@School wa taking place in Rotorua in the North Island of New Zealand ( about 13,000 miles away!!).
The following evening while I was sat partly watching the television and partly updating some blogs on my laptop ( with Skype on of course ) it was around 9.15pm. I had a Skype IM from Allanah who asked ' I am sitting in David Warlick's talk on the use of RSS in aggregating, would you like to hear what he has to say?'
The answer of course was 'YES PLEASE!!' - seconds later the Skype Phone rang and I was listening to David in the lecture room 13,000 miles away! I could also hear people around Allanah which is really weird like actually being there !! Sadly no Video ( but you can't have everything) Another message ' would you like to move closer in order to hear better?' To which the answer again was 'Yes please!'
Now being so far away I will have to imagine the rest of the story - I can see Allanah calmly placing her laptop on the platform in front of David!!!! What I have since heard is that David could actually see me ( my video on ) while he was presenting ( I was looking very studious honest and taking notes (and dressed!!!) He was also fascinated by Allanah's screensaver as it kicked in.
I have always wanted to have the opportunity of listening to David speak so you can imagine my enjoyment of 'almost' being there as he was inspiring the educators in New Zealand with his Virginia 'twang'. I was only disappointed when sadly the battery on the laptop gave out before the end - I have to imagine the bits I missed, but the time I had listening was quite something -
Thank you very much Allanah and David for the experience.

2 comments:

Moturoa said...

It was a totally awesome conference in all repects. Everyone was so busy learning and enjoying themselves that there were few complaints about the internet going down for great chunks of time, the toilets being out of order or the lights going off in the entire complex or the painters painting above you as you walked into the main auditorium for keynotes!

Thanks so much for your Skype contribution. It helped bring the concept alive for my new podcasting mates!

Allanah

Anonymous said...

Hi Paul,
Allanah sent me your link.

I was there and it was great to hear David. It certainly is amazing what we can do these days.

Let's hope it makes the world a better place.

All the best

Tom

A dear friend

It seems very apt to be writing this blog post in tribute to a dear, dear friend. The world has lost a true global educational  IT innovator...