Long Day's Conference (Presentations and consultations...)


Spent the day at the International Forum on e-Learning and Standardization at which Walter suggested I present. 10 minute general introduction on the project. I'm told all the presentations were being recorded and should show up online at some point.

Rest of the day spent mostly in answering questions for people. I'm getting toward exhausted at this point. Really haven't had a chance to decompress after the wedding and I've got half a dozen projects that need urgent attention.

Quite a few good contacts. I've started not accepting cards. We don't have the manpower to shepherd people who aren't able to self-start, and I'm running out of time to work on the project week-to-week, so having people contact me, rather than collecting cards to contact them just makes more sense. If people aren't engaged enough to send the first email they probably won't be engaged enough to really help, and not having to track and process cards means I'm not relying on my rather poor memory to support people.

I've got an Ignite talk on Monday to do as well, that's a more traditional software development crowd. Today was educators, specialists in accessibility, governmental reps, standardization reps and university faculty/students. Both groups are needed.

Basic take from our study group (union of all groups' points I'll leave to the conference's reporter):

Vision -- need global access (incl. financial and physical), need easy mechanisms to create standardized accessible materials, need to make the process of learning push beyond the traditional classroom model, allowing materials to be brought with you into normal life (yes, people familiar with the project will recognize all of those).

Process -- need to bring an audacious top-level plan to governments, something along the lines of "compulsory license of all copyright work for educational purposes" along with a mechanism similar to the copyright levy. Let the publishers argue down from there if they feel they can make a reasonable case, but lobby for what would be the best system for the children, not what we think we can get. Not to say that particular solution is the one to argue, btw, it's just an example.

Anyway, need to practise the presentation a bit to see what needs to be cut to hit 5 minutes exactly. I actually picked up the video camera so I would be able to tape the presentation, time it, etceteras, but I'm just too exhausted tonight to do much. Will have to just use whatever slides I have as of tomorrow evening.

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