Conference guidelines

Debra J. Brydon Online Conference Manager

Some of you may not have taken part in an online conference before, so here are a few guidelines.

Successful online conference participants need to be independent and proactive learners, who are aware of their own learning needs, and who are capable of creating, and adhering to, their own learning model.

In an online conference, no one will supervise your participation or monitor your progress. There is no letter, number, certificate or status awarded to you at ‘the end' for public display. In fact, we are hoping that ‘the end' will not coincide with the last day of the online conference. We are hoping that the ideas that are planted, and the contacts developed, will continue to grow and bear fruit long after the website closes down. In the end, it will be you who assesses just how valuable this experience has been in the long-term.

The old saying that ‘you only get out of life what you put into it' could not apply more to an online conference. If you're a passive and private learner, you will still gain some knowledge and ideas from this experience. However, if you're prepared to take up the challenge of being an active and interactive team learner, you will gain maximum benefit from the opportunity.

In order to participate most successfully in this online conference, you'll need to be a proactive and independent time manager. It's not realistic to cram a professional development opportunity of this quality and magnitude into ‘whatever scraps of spare time you can find'. This approach will only lead to disappointment, as the days slip by and your busy life and unexpected ‘extras' consume all of the spare time you thought you might have.

Some recommendations

Before you begin, decide in advance how much time you are able to devote to this professional development opportunity. Be realistic and don't make time promises to yourself that you just can't keep.

Before you begin, decide in advance exactly where, in your regular schedule, you will find the time to participate. Be flexible, and work within the patterns of your regular working and personal life to create some ‘time space'. If necessary, temporarily prune off something that is a lesser priority or can be postponed. Avoid times that are likely to be interrupted by higher order or unexpected concerns. Discipline yourself to stick to the times you have allocated.

You should log on to the online conference every day it is active. We will be contacting you regularly by email. Please check your email daily, or at least regularly, during this period.

Why expose your personal viewpoint by entering the online discussions?

Some participants are initially reluctant to enter online discussions. This attitude is based on their mistaken belief that all the views expressed on the online discussions must be cutting edge, prophetic, academically faultless, need to please everyone, as well as being beautifully written. These people believe they may be privately criticised by others, either because they expressed an individual (possibly non-mainstream) perspective or because their contribution was not ‘perfect' (in a literary or academic sense). They therefore withdraw into the safety of anonymity and ‘lurk' as a spectator on the edges of the online conference, making no contribution at all. The point they are missing is that online discussions are not intended to be public tests of knowledge, cleverness or literary skill.

Rather, they are interactive learning conversations, where the ideas and information presented in each paper are informally shared, analysed and discussed by all participants, in a friendly manner.

What should you write in an online discussion comment? You may choose to respond to an existing comment. If you wish to make a new remark, it is helpful to draw on brief notes beforehand.

Try not to passively watch others actively participate in the online discussion simply because you're never tried this type of ‘conversation' before. The steps to entering your comment are easy to follow. If you make a mistake, you can delete or amend the text – but only before you press the ‘Post' button. After this point, your entry is permanent and you cannot change it. So, we ask that you take a few extra seconds to check the content of your contribution – and especially the spelling – of your entry before you submit it.

Debra J. Brydon
Online Conference Manager
Email: brydon@cybertext.net.au