The unorganized internet has a huge potential for learning and professional development. Sewing, planting, growing, cultivating and harvesting the streams of information has become a collaboration trend among journalists, librarians, educators and consultants who wish to explore and promote collective intelligence. Today I read an "unarticle" in the online journal for English language teachers, tesl-ej.org by the editor, Vance Stevens. He recently arranged and co-orchestrated the WIAOC conference. Vance is a true multitasker, He named this an unarticle because he is "unleashing a stream of consciousness on the many convergences I'm playing with there at the moment. I'm not sure if you'll feel enlightened or inflicted upon after reading". I did the first. And I often do when I get to have a look into Vance's multiverse, and follow his breadcrumb trajectory of unconference, podcasts, wikis, blogs and more. As he explains wbout the WIAOC conference, "This is a free online conference where pretty much anything goes. Whereas the organizers try to make things as clear as possible for attendees, participants and presenters are encouraged to explore as many modalities for communication and interaction as possible in an effort to help each other learn the tools, so there is a tolerance for experimentation at the expense of a simple one-stop interface. But part of what there is to learn about Internet literacy is how to personally organize the morass of information accessible online through efficient aggregation. So the conference will attempt also to show participants how order can be gleaned from what what would otherwise seem chaotic on the Internet by utilizing many of the social networking features so appropriately employed at the K-12 Online conference while carrying on the work of the community largely associated with the annual EVO events." I will need to dig deeper into this amazing stream of conscious knowledge and experience sharing. But I'll need to log into a conference call on Skype, so this is just a note.
with the headline: Connect. conversations about
