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August 07, 2003
Blogging Conferences
This MERLOT conference is the first time I've tried weblogging the sessions I attend. Here's a couple of observations about this practice.
First, it's friggin' hard. I'm not accustomed to taking such copious notes during presentations. I was always the kind of student (and conference participant) that took very few notes. Of course I didn't have a laptop when I was a student, and typing about 110 words a minute helps. Personally, I find that note-taking decreases my attention and retention. Clearly that's not the case for everyone, but I find myself less focused on understanding and more focused on recording.
Second, don't take the notes in your browser. I suppose the advantage to this is you can save several times during the presentation so your readers can get a semi-live update. But weblogs aren't IRC, so I think it's totally legit to post your session notes at the end of the session. I've seen too many people complain about losing their session notes because the browser crashed or whatever. I just use EditPad (a Notepad replacement), so I don't have to worry about browser crashes, wifi hiccups, etc.
I will probably not record notes for all the sessions I attend today. I'm going to focus on understanding, not recording. There's plenty of other people blogging the conference. :-)
Posted August 7, 2003 11:57 AM