Sunday 18 January 2009

ScienceOnline09 - my bouncing brain

Today was filled with meeting more bloggers and my head is bouncing. The pace of conversations in each session that moved deftly from topic to comment to rebuttal to expansion to completely-different-fascinating-facet.

My sketch pens were put to some furious scribbling in my sketchbook about what I saw and heard. Marvelous day.

For those not at ScienceOnline09, there are multiple topics in each time slot. Here's where I was Saturday, along with random, (and unfairly uncredited, sorry) comments that stuck with me. Random bits, that's all - I don't drink alcohol, so three dinner coffees and two Cokes later, and my brain is bouncing like a superball.

-Science fiction on science blogs with Stephanie Zvan. Though SF has a something of a credibility issue on many science-based blogs, there is still a strong sense of SF culture, especially in random asides and jokes, often in the comment threads. Also, in a way, each time a scientist proposes a hypothesis, it is a kind of science fiction put forth until data back it up.

-Transitions - your online persona as your life changes with ScienceWoman and Propterdoc. The idea of 'polyblogging' to preserve anonymity, and the importance of being able to say things from a responsible, anonymous standpoint to help others, and to gain community. Revealing yourself when you can to widen the acceptance of blogging as a valuable aspect of your cv.

- Teaching college science: blogs & beyond with Andrea Novicki and Brian Switek. Useful ways for students to learn how to give and take criticism. Accretionary blogging vs wikis. Bait student above abilities, lead them up the ladder. Use of lecture notes into blog posts as a study aid.

- Delicious lunch sponsored by ScienceInTheTriangle.org . Two things; thank you, and does this caterer deliver to Canada?

-Blogging adventure
with Karen James, Talia Page, Anne-Marie Hodge, Meredith Barrett, Kevin Zelnio, Vanessa Woods and Rick McPhearson. Don't be alone in a room with two or more marine biologists in the dark. Especially not when they have puppets. New frontiers of humanity untouched by cellphones do not exist. Don't blog when you have the runs in India or you'll be robbed. Don't accidentally take a poacher's picture. Very informative lively session.

-Art & Science avec moi. I'll post about this separately. I learned some things from the group, so I hope that means it went well.

- Online science for the kids with Janet Stemwedel. Great googly-moogly, there were a lot of resources here!

More later today about my art & science session -I have yet to update the wiki- and I'll be attending a few more, and sharing a workshop with artist Tanja Sova about putting images online. It sort of begs the question about where all the images are in this post, doesn't it?

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All original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow. The contents of this blog are under a Creative Commons Licence. See sidebar for details.
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3 comments:

Zach said...

Sounds fun. I need to go to one of these conferences! Does it move around the country?

Glendon Mellow said...

Not yet! It's centered in North Carolina so far. Growing every year, but it was my first time going.

That'd be awesome.

Flame Den said...

Great article. I came to know about an indian/independent SF site which came into existence recently. It looks promising, you can check it at http://indisf.com. They are inviting authors to write for them.

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