4/15/08 - Meet the Presenters: Andrea Duff travels from Down Under to talk Wiki
Andrea Duff will be traveling over 8,700 miles to present at the NUTN conference. Find out why in this online interview with NUTN Advisory Board member John Sener.
JS: We’re flattered that you would come all the way from Australia to present at the NUTN conference. How did you learn about the NUTN conference, and what made you decide to present at NUTN?
AD: The University of South Australia is a member of a similar consortium of universities - the Australian Technology Network - which regards itself as being at the cutting edge of all things online. Some like-minded blogophile colleagues sent through the notification of the NUTN event and I felt our work (particularly with first year students and blogs) would fit hand-in-glove with the conference theme.
Actually, I am one in a long line of UniSA fans of NUTN who have attended your conferences, following in the footsteps of people such as Ingrid
Day, Bruce King and (recently) Ian Reid. Each of these colleagues has been
active in propelling technology and online teaching at UniSA [and] other
peak organisations such as the Open and Distance Learning Association
in Australia.
JS: Your presentation description refers to the “humble blog” and notes that you will be “unpacking” it. What leads you to believe that blogs will have staying power, and how do they help to sustain learner communities when so many other technological innovations often fall short in that regard?
AD: Blogs are the embodiment of the 'X' factor in social technology learning environments. They lend themselves to be colloquial, colourful and (above all) engaging. They can be reflective or corporate in tone - depending on the intent of the blog.
Recently our national ABC Radio described blogs as 'taking over' talk-back radio. The way in which they lend themselves to opinions and soul searching mirror, in some ways, the discourses and relationships in talk-back radio…I like to think of blogs as a mechanism for diminishing distance between people in a busy and sometimes alienated existence.
Each year, blog functionality gets better and better and tools such as 'Google Blogger' enable sound, video, graphics, automatic archiving, asynchronous discussion and a raft of other techno-goodies. More importantly, they are intuitive and it doesn't take long for novices to become hooked. However, that there needs to be a successful coupling with subscription tools such as Feedburner, so that users can access blogs in a multiplicity of ways.
JS: Besides what’s already in the conference description, what else you would like prospective attendees to know about the content of your upcoming presentation?
AD: Amidst some understandable skepticism, we had our first year Computer Science students last year blog their orientation experience. On the orientation organising committee (which has since become the CIS Quest group) three of us had any experience with blogs. To my surprise, all of the students blogged in ways which were colourful, reflective, whimsical and interactive.
On his blog, [one of the students] spoke of his nervousness, uncertainty and excitement about making the transition from secondary school to the big, new world of higher education.
Blogging, I think, provides not only a handy repository of information but in this instance, a window into souls…a space and place for sharing innermost hopes, fears and aspirations. We don't see this a lot at Universities.
