A Wandering Eyre

Last week, at Computers in Libraries, I facilitated a session in which the participants defined the direction of our 45 minutes together. It was fun for me and, I think, fun for them as well. After some brainstorming, multi-voting, hand-raising, and discussion, the topic that came to the forefront was “Getting Difficult People to Come [...]

The family Rochester is heading north to Washington, D.C. for the Computers in Libraries conference this week. The boys will be seeing the sights, aka the Air and Space Museum, while I am mingling with book and tech nerds, aka librarians. I will be making two official appearances: Wednesday from 10:30-11:15, on Track F, I [...]

I wrote an article for FUMSI called “An unconference approach can revitalise meetings and training.” FUMSI is an online resource for information professionals. The link above is only for the abstract. The full article is available for FUMSI subscribers only. In the article I discuss some classic unconference facilitation styles, like fishbowl and knowledge cafe, [...]

ALA has been working hard, as have the divisions, in the past couple of years to incorporate more unconference type things into the schedule at Annual and Midwinter. Up until this point, these things have been special events and, while there are a few, most of them are not recurring. It is time to start [...]

And also in the news: Mob Rule Learning is reviewed over at ForeWord. These kinds of things make me do one of two things: make me think, “Hey, I wrote that!” or look behind me for that smart person being discussed; she sounds interesting. –Jane, is occasionally interesting

I had a nice chat over the phone with Alexandra Rice from the Wired Campus at the Chronicle of Higher Education last week. She posted the interview today. I really would like the discussion about how people are using the wisdom of the crowd in the classroom to be something that happens more often. A [...]

Here are a couple resources that might be useful to you if you are new to the idea of the wisdom of the crowd or if you need a little inspiration for your own mob: unconference.net – Though the blog on this site is not updated often and much of the information was posted long [...]

This past weekend, I drove 5 hours Saturday and 5 hours back home Sunday with two small children to go to the wedding of a very good friend. The kids were great and it was worth the hassle to see my friend so happy. It reminded me that so many things in life are about [...]

Last week, a very nice UPS man delivered a box filled with copies of Mob Rule Learning into my very eager hands. I am going to share my wealth of books with you, wonderful readers. This is a win-it-before-you-can-buy-it contest and you and I know free stuff is awesome. To win a signed paperback copy [...]

AIDS researchers have spent ten years trying to map a protein enzyme of the AIDS virus. A complete view of the protein will give researchers a window into how the virus works and thus enable them to create better, more effective drugs. A group from the University of Washington turned the problem into a competitive [...]