This Thursday, February 15 at 1:30 UBC is hosting our latest webloggers salon at Telestudios, and I think it’s going to be a humdinger (whatever a humdinger is, I hope it’s a good thing). As with previous salons, I envision something between a formal panel and a total free-for-all, and hopefully we’ll attract a sizable contingent of UBC’s blogging community, as well as anyone else in the area who is interested.

We have three featured participants that represent a vast wealth of diverse experiences and expertise:

Eugene Barsky is the driving force behind the UBC Physio Info-blog, a site designed to inform and connect British Columbia’s physiotherapists. With an intended audience of 1,700 practitioners, the site has had 17,000 visits over the past nine months. Among other things, I hope to get Eugene talking about the many nifty goodies he’s added to enhance the site, such as the Google custom search.

Jon Beasley-Murray has been blogging at Posthegemony and Latin America on Screen (and elsewhere) for nearly two years. I’vealways enjoyed our collaborations, as he is a consistent advocate of a distributed and hands-off approach to course blogging that ensures student autonomy over their own spaces. An example of a simple course aggregation over multiple platforms can be seen at this page … and a similar approach was used for a distributed symposium on Gayatri Spivak. One reason I’m glad he’s taking part is that he doesn’t withhold his fearsome critical skills when it comes to blogging — see this rip for a sample. Jon will also be part of the education session at Northern Voice.

E. Wayne Ross maintains at least three blogs. A course blog (e learning with e wayne), a complementary blog to the Workplace journal, and his freewheeling professional/personal Where the Blog has No Name. Wayne is always provocative in all these spaces, regularly turning me on to professional developments ranging from the shocking to the appalling. And shallow fellow that I am, I especially enjoy his music blogging — his tastes are diverse and most groovy, and he’s the only person I know who might dig Robert Pollard more than I do.

In addition, we have a few special blogger guests who we will be weaving into the discussion. If you are attending and have thoughts you would like to see represented on the agenda, do let me know.

For those who want to stick around after the discussion wraps around 3:00, I will follow with a series of short demos of useful tools and tricks that offer some pretty slick benefits for bloggers, particularly educational ones.

It promises to be a lively discussion. If you can attend please do register so we can plan for appropriate numbers.

Blurb below:

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Weblogger’s Salon – UBC’s Bloggers Sound Off

Date: February 15, 2007
Time: 1:30 – 3:00 pm – followed by lightning tool demos from 3:00 -3:30 pm

Location: ITServices Telestudio, Lower Level, Rm, #0110 – 2329 West Mall

The simplicity and flexibility of weblog systems has led
to an explosion of popularity in all domains, including education. The
dramatic growth in the ranks of UBC bloggers across the university is
undeniable. But have the
shiny tools fundamentally changed educational practice? Do weblogs and
other social software tools truly provide a superior means of
publishing information and communicating with a community? What happens
when student are given meaningful control over their online
environments? What are the drawbacks or dangers of this approach? What
can technology units do to provide the support that bloggers really need

As
a special event leading up to the Northern Voice weblog conference,
some of UBC’s most innovative and accomplished webloggers will lead a
discussion of these and other critical issues. For those who can stay
after the discussion, convenor Brian Lamb will run through a series of
lightning demos of tools and tricks that are indispensable for the
educational blogger.