Transglobal Flashmeeting

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At 8pm Saturday 25th August the second Flashmeeting held between Edubloggers and Podcasters was held. The first meeting a month ago had 5 attendees globally, as you can see from the Skitch Map above we reached our target of 15 attendees this time around ( maybe 25 next time)... A salient point was made by Jason Hando from Sydney Australia, we need to get Educational Bloggers and Podcasters from Africa and Asia to come online with these technologies to give us their perspective on The World - I know that now with the $100 laptop scheme, and work by groups such as MediaSnackers - who recently trained bloggers and film makers in South Africa - these barriers should begin to break down... point well made Jason :)
This ties in with Terry Freedman, another of the Flashmeeting attendees point that it appears to be the same group of people who are meeting in different forums using different methods of communication - Terry asking the question is this going anywhere?
I think that to answer the question you only know when you see what that group of teachers and educators are doing in their own area to 'evangelize' the use of technology in the classroom... If you look at the CV's of some people who were in the meeting they mostly all have some element of 'Spreading the Word'with colleagues or teachers in their local area or beyond. ( Wes Fryer recently mentioned these people as local Yoda's)
An example came in a Skype conversation I had with Kirstin Hokanson straight after the FlashMeeting, Kristin will be using FlashMeeting as part of her work with teaching colleagues at her school this week where they will be discussing how using Web 2.0 tools could transform a classroom and how they teach.... this is just one example of many in which those involved with Web 2.0 are getting out there and doing it.... so I guess we do tend to be the same people meeting, but as with tonight, there were at least 5 people who have never been involved in using this technology before and now will certainly consider it.
If you follow the link you will be able to hear and see the discussion - also take a while to look at the detailed statistics which are recorded
link to Flashmeeting
We will have another meeting within the next fortnight, probably on a Saturday evening in the UK at around 10pm, making it more manageable for those in Australia and New Zealand.
I would like to say a big thank you to Jason Hando for co-hosting ( from 8,000 miles away), Lisa Durff for pushing me into organising it and also Sharon Peters for helping with the streaming to WorldBridges, also thanks to Jeff Howson who has put in sterling work promoting Flashmeeting around the UK and Europe ( I guess now, its The World too Jeff :)... and also to all 15 people who made it in this time.

Next time why don't you come and join us - I will post a url for the next meeting soon, on this blog and will e-mail it to those who attended this time....