Scott threw a suggestion onto Twitter this morning that has been percolating for a few hours.
It just hit me. CANHEIT is here at UCalgary in June.
I can arrange meeting space here on campus. If anyone’s interested in a face-to-face Eduglu/Social:Learn/Web 2.0 in higher ed meetup, how does The University of Calgary in June 2008 sound? Maybe Thursday June 19th? Something during the conference proper? The week before or after? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?
Update: After some gentle prodding from Scott, I realize that an incrementalist approach, which is what a CANHEIT session would be, is not sufficient. We need to kick out the jams in ways that wouldn’t be possible in the context of CANHEIT – even if the session was before or after the conference, it would be coloured by Commercial Enterprise IT agenda. Wrong.
I’m withdrawing my offer to host a CANHEIT session, in favour of a standalone event wherever – it could still be at UCalgary if that works out, but it sounds like things would be much more radical and powerful if we were able to impose on Brian‘s hospitality at UBC:OLT.
Calgary is hitchhiking distance for me.
if you can find a ride without jeopardizing life and limb, there’s a futon waiting for you.
Futon, eh? Revenge will be sweet. Whether it’s you or me who inflicts the revenge is unknown.
We’re looking yo have socialearn deliverables by July, so the API and toolsuite should be well on by June. It’d maybe be an opportunity to talk around something tangible, though if you’re willing to chip ideas in before then, that’d be appreictyaed too… (a wiki’ll be on the way in a day or two…we’re all juggling too much stuff at the mo!)
I just checked my calendar, and I am free. But why don;t you all consider coming to Virginia for some faculty Academy and Eduglu band rehearsal, we could maybe have our first gig!
If you need graphic recording, let me know! (I don’t speak enough geek to get too deep into the guts of eduglu, but I’m good at the conceptual level!)
If you’re okay with a just-barely-post-formal-education, never-been-to-Northern-Voice-but-always-wanted-to renegade in the midst, I’d be there, too, trying to bring you all to my side of the Academy fence.
oh please oh please oh please oh please don’t let this CANHEIT idea get any traction. No offense D’Arcy, we don’t need to swim upstream any longer. That’s what we always do. So let’s jam, but do it somewhere the music can be heard.
@scott: at first, I didn’t think your stance against a CANHEIT session was valid, but now I absolutely agree – incrementalism is not enough. We need to do much more than we could under the umbrella of a conference like that. I’ve updated the post to withdraw the CANHEIT session offer… To Lotusland! (?)
Cool, I appreciate your listening with open ears, mind and heart. I am excited by the potential of not just a meetup but a bit of a ‘camp’; you, Jim, Bill and others are all getting “eduglu” very close to the goal line, and the idea of collectively jamming on this for a few days and coming away with something implementable on a wider scale (which I *think* is partly what we are talking about) seems incredibly timely. So let’s make this happen, just not amidst a bunch of IT administrators who would throw every bit of FUD itsway from the get go. And even if, as Jim says, it proves to be a McGuffin, the cast of characters we could bring together around this plot device is astounding and exciting.
the only appeal that the canheit idea held was that people might already be going to so we could piggyback easily. But then I realized that the people who could make a difference would avoid it like the plague. Much cooler to have a standalone camp event. Even better, if we can do it in Lotusland 🙂
Thanks for the offers and interest guys. I was talking to Stuart Sim last night (he’s the developer in NY who’s heading up our work), and he suggested piggybacking on another conference, and my response was similar – it would be good because people are there anyway, but bad in that we want something less formal and more freewheeling. So I came down on the go it alone side too. There definitely seems synergy between the edugluers and social:learn – whether they are exactly the same thing I’m still not sure, but they are at least close cousins. What it shows is that it is an idea whose time has come, and who better to do it than a bunch of indie-lovin edubloggers? Warning – I am likely to be the academic who gets lost amidst tech speak after 10 minutes and adopts his nodding dog face.