Trying to support deeper conversation at an ed-conference? DLRN15 is trying Slack

#DLRN15
DLRN15 is going to happen in nine days. The conference is exploring the impact of the digital on higher education. We’re hoping to have deep conversations on complex issues. We’ve got passionate people coming. How can we make it as useful to people as possible? How do we allow multiple voices to participate to allow that complexity to emerge? How do we encourage that conversation to continue?

Slack experiment
Following the XOXO festival’s lead this year we thought we might take a run at using Slack to support conference conversations. We’ve been using Slack to help organize the conference… and… well… it’s really helpful. If you haven’t used Slack, its like a more organized, slightly more functional twitter. It lets you create channels (really hashtags) to coordinate conversation topics. It allows basic googledoc integration.

It has one feature that I consider essential to battling signal/noise problems – it has a functional notification system. In all my work with open communities, I’ve found that notification is just about the most important part of the process… whether that comes through a newsletter or through facebook updates. Slack has a fairly good notification process, which might really help people zoom in on conversations that they want to pursue.

How we might use Slack
Conference logistics – At the very least, people will know where to go to ask a question. That alone is pretty useful. Will there be too much noise to make it a good place for that? Maybe. Conference announcements? Slack. Too much noise? Don’t know.
Conference socializing – It can be hard to find people to have lunch with, grab a drink with or have dinner with the night before a conference. I always feel just a little weird posting open dinner invitations to the conference twitter hashtag… like my kids are going to worry that I’m lonely. I’m hoping that at the very least people will know where to find other people at the conference. Looking for someone? Find them on Slack. Don’t want to be found? don’t login. easy peasy.
Conference themes – We have five conference themes that we’re hoping to explore. I’m hoping that we can get a bit of a discussion going before the conference starts on each theme. I’d like to have a place where those five conversations can evolve over the conference. I have this idea that people can keep going back to keep pushing the conversation a little further.
Special topic creation – The XOXO conference had 150 channels by the time their conference was over. I think it’d be great if people started their own channels as topics of special interest emerge.

Social contract
As with any new space and any place where new connections are being made there’s a need for addressing the implicit social contract. We are very much trying to create a space where as many people as possible can have a voice… can be part of the conversation. This is DLRNs inclusion statement…

#dlRN15 is dedicated to trying to create an inclusive conversation for all participants, and to welcome voices across lines of gender, gender identity and expression, age, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, race, ethnicity, religion (or lack thereof), technology choices, and academic status.

anti-open?
I don’t expect Slack to replace other methods of sending out content. I can still see people tweeting and sending out images on instagram. I still hope to see blog posts. We’re going to try and do some interesting things with Periscope. I’m hoping that Slack will encourage more discussion amongst the participants that will lead to even more stuff being sent out to the web. We’ll see. Have to try it to find out.

We certainly had some folks during the recent open courses I was facilitating concerned about the exclusion they felt when much of the conversation was being held in Facebook. I’m sensitive to this… but I think it’s still worth trying. We’ll keep track of how it goes and report back after the conference.

Sign up
Want to sign up? Here’s the form. Not coming to the conference and still interested in finding out how it works? Feel free to sign up. Will it be a positive experience? No idea. Please let us know.

Author: dave

I run this site... among other things. View all posts by dave