I'm sure everyone else knows about this conference by now, but I have been totally caught up with work these last few weeks, and have not had a chance to write about it until now. 
So, here is some news about what I regard as a great opportunity for professional development, my thoughts about it, and how you can get involved.
Quick history lesson: the conference has run twice now, so this will be the third year running. The presentations from the previous two years are still available online. Go to the conference home page and you'll see the links on the right-hand side. The conference takes the form of two weeks'-worth of the conference proper, although there are pre-conference presentations too -- a practice which I think is odd, but not uncommon. Also, there are usually 4 themes over the two weeks, an arrangement which has remained for 2008.
It sounds strange to talk about online presentations which are not live (although there are live discussions), but it does seem to work. Videos, podcasts or slide shows appear at the appointed time, and then remain ad infinitum. The challenge is keeping it up with it all (I still have not seen or heard all of the last two years' presentations in their entirety), and recording your participation for your resumé or curriculum vitae.
Last year I was invited (and accepted the invitation) to chair the conference professional development committee. Its remit was to find ways of ensuring that people's "attendance" at the conference could be both recorded and, if possible, accredited, a challenge if ever there was one. I think between us we achieved some good work, which I hope the conference organisers will either build upon or at least highlight. But of course, you must be the judge of whether what we came up with really does stand up to scrutiny. Hopefully, you will at least be able at least to use it as a starting pint for your own records.
As well as being pretty good professional development, it's a good way of meeting people too. During one of the live chats in the 2006 conference, I "met" Paul Harrington, a teacher in Wales (who has, incidentally, also written about this year's conference). I have since met Paul in real life at Ewan McIntosh's Teachmeet at the BETT show in January 2008 (where you will find links to Ewan's blog and others' blogs), been introduced to Flashmeeting through him, and discovered that he and Allanah King, who lives in New Zealand, know each other through collaborating with each other. (In fact, Allanah has demonstrated that she is a woman of taste and intelligence by not merely linking to one of my posts but reproducing it in its entirety 
. Don't worry: she did credit me!)
My point is, had I not been involved in that online discussion I may not have met Paul, and may not have been part of, in an oblique sort of way, the web of connections that include both him and Allanah.
The overall theme for 2008 is "Amplifying Possibilities". I can't say I like that much -- it makes me think of hi-fi equipment -- but still. The four strands this year are:
Getting started [with Web 2.0]
A great idea to have this, and in some ways not too different from previous years in that it's designed to appeal to Web 2.0 newbies.
Kicking it up a notch
Web 2.0 tools have been around for a while now, so what can be done that is fresh and innovative? That's what this strand is all about.
Prove it
This, as the name suggests, is about assessment. Thank goodness this is now being addressed, because one of my constant complaints is that many proponents of Web 2.0 tools in the classroom either don't like to think about whether they are having a positive (and measurable) impact, or do so in the most superficial manner. I had a bit of a disagreement with Ewan McIntosh over the issue of whether there has been enough research in this area: I say there hasn't been, he says there has (you can hear us not quite come to blows about it in this discussion!).
Assessment is a particular passion of mine, and something I happen to know about, so there is a danger that I will go away completely from the main thrust of this post if I'm not careful. Therefore I shall stop, except to say that I've just written an article about two key difficulties of assessment.
Leading the change
This, the final strand, is also one I welcome with open arms. I get turned on by visionary speakers as much as the next person, but when all is said and done we have to live in the real world. Not everyone has a personality of such charisma that he or she merely has to say,
"Let there be educational ICT throughout the land school"
for there to be educational ICT everywhere. Vision has to be translated into strategy, and strategy into practice, and there are practical ways of doing exactly that.
As you may have gathered, leadership is another passion of mine, and I really hope that both the keynote speaker and the other presenters for this strand have actually done what they intend to talk about. I for one do not have the time for the sort of superficial, platitudinous codswallop dressed up as revolutionary and forward-thinking that seems to appear, disproportionately, in this area.
And now, having dismounted from my high horse, I am going to have a cup of tea to help me calm down and relax! Whilst I am doing that, you may like to consider putting a proposal for a presentation -- you will find details here. I was pleased to see that a suggestion made by myself (and, I am sure, other people) that the criteria for acceptance be made more explicit has been taken up. That's a good thing.
I think my only big criticism is that the descriptions of the conference strands read as though somebody swallowed an educational management dictionary. The sentences are too long, and the language too abstruse (a bit like the word "abstruse", in fact). I mean, look at this:
"Rather than merely replicating traditional, analog-based learning tasks, how can digital technologies permit teacher-leaders to "infomate" learning to add greater interactivity, personal differentiation, and multi-modal exploration of curriculum topics?"
Come on, guys! Why not just say,
"How can digital technologies help teachers do something different?"
But don't let that sort of stuff put you off. Grab a dictionary, read the blurb, and get involved.
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