First breakout session, about blogging in general.

The panelists are talking about who blogs and why. Pretty interesting points. One thing the bloggers talked about was comments policies and Mano Singham posed an interesting question, “If you have a comments policy, aren’t you liable for the comments you let through. Doesn’t it look like you’re condoning those comments?”

Another audience member said that a blog that his friend runs changed the icon for anonymous posts to the cowardly lion from The Wizard of Oz.

Lastly, an audience member asks what the macro impact of blogging is: is it an additive or replacement activity? Some panelists think it’s an additive activity. I disagree, at least in the way that I use this blog. There are some things I record here so that I don’t have to explain them a second time. Other times I use it to announce things that I would like to announce once and reach my subscribers (most of whom are friends of mine) all at the same time.

Case is hosting a summit on Collaborative Technology in Higher Education, CollabTech, which I’ll be reporting on throughout the day.

First up is a panel discussion using next generation technologies like  SecondLife to augment learning by  bridging geography.  Not too sure how I feel about that.  The whole environment feels kind of cartoonish.  I think that extra layer of “unreality” provides a sense of disconnect, especially in comparison with video chat.  I demoed Adobe Connect in one of my classes this semester, and it was fantastic.  Totally Flash based, so there’s really no extra software needed.  Allows video and audio chat, screen sharing, shared whiteboard, private chats.  I don’t feel like SecondLife, in it’s current version, allows the same kind of connection as a virtual “world”.