Imagine a conference that takes place online…
Okay, that’s not too challenging, nor in 2018, is it a massive stretch of the imagination.
Imagine a conference that takes place online but is about one thing, and one thing only – the use of WordPress in teaching, pedagogy and research…
That’s still not too challenging, though reading back through these first couple of sentences, you may be thinking that this all sounds rather constricting. So, like a snake that hasn’t eaten for a month and has just spied a fallen antelope, let’s make things even more constricting.
Imagine a conference that takes place online, is solely about WordPress, and is hosted entirely on Twitter…
Now your collective foreheads are wrinkling, aren’t they?
I was intrigued when I found out about PressED, having never considered for one second the notion of Twitter as a conference space. And I have to admit that I submitted an abstract out of curiosity as much as anything else. There were a range of logistic mountains to climb, surely? How could a conference ‘run’ on Twitter? How would it be managed? Who would manage it? Surely it would become an ever more complicated maze of Twitter threads containing more back channel noise than Chip Alley on a Friday night. I’ve become embroiled in a lot of Twitter chats, and endured a number of migraines as a result. So this would be a nightmare, wouldn’t it?
It turns out that the answer to that last question is a big, fat, glossy ‘No’. And that’s down to ensuring presenters stuck to a very simple but effective methodology, and very clear organisation. Here are the rules:
- One presentation only to be delivered any given time
- Each presenter given exactly 15 minutes: 10 minutes to Tweet their key points, and a following 5 minutes to answer any questions
Tweet scheduling was actively recommended by the conference team as a way to make the process as fool-proof and stress-free as possible. Using TweetDeck, I wrote 10 Tweets the afternoon before (ensuring all of them ended with #pressedconf18), added relevant images taken from my overarching PowerPoint presentation, added the presentation to SlideShare and generated a link, and then added this link to my final Tweet for anyone who wanted to find out more. So the image you see below is of me ‘doing’ my presentation. And yes, I was working from home, in bed, wearing pyjamas. My scheduled Tweets were automatically appearing every 60 seconds, and I was able to concentrate on any related Tweets, likes, retweets or questions that were coming through.
And what a fantastic experience it was. Presentations started and finished at exactly the times allocated – due, largely I guess, to the fact that everyone seemed to have scheduled their Tweets in advance. Each presentation was easy to follow, questions were answered quickly and thoughtfully from presenters who weren’t trying to juggle their presentation along with audience questions, comments or interruptions. And, vitally, as someone who is using WordPress as a replacement VLE with a small group of students, it was a perfect opportunity to get some insights from other practitioners doing the same. I finished feeling elated, excited, and with a real enthusiasm for this very clean ‘crisp’ way of doing a conference.
I took a lot away with me too – a new way of taking part in a 21st century conference, and a new way of using Twitter… but if there is one valuable, pedagogic ‘take away’, it’s just how many other people are (perhaps subversively) using WordPress as a replacement for Moodle and Blackboard. Maybe the days of the locked-down, institutionally-branded, ‘nothing other than a digital filing cabinet for ancient PowerPoint presentations’ VLE are approaching an end?
I’d like to finish up this post by saying thank you to PressED organisers Natalie Lafferty and Pat Lockley for making this amazing event happen.
Bex Ferriday's Edutechy Wonderland 