Hi,

Gary here, after three long weeks on the road. (Yes, that is ironic from a webconferencing company – but managing ongoing relationships takes occasional F2F and the frequency of rich interactions that webconferencing allows.)

So, anyhow, the three conferences I attended were very interesting.  I have boiled down one big question from each of these conferences.  Clearly, there were many more questions answered and raised – but hey, this is a BLOG and not a book.  (Not yet anyway.)

Here they are…

From the Alliance for Distance Education in California conference – my big question:

  • In universal design, a vendor can address it at the start of a product’s design, or try to (less effectively) “add it on” after a product is designed or even after its first release. How do we bring the idealistic view of “build it from inception” closer to the practical reality of “bolt it on after” in order to bring universal accessibility to products?

From the Apple Digital Campus Leadership Institute and the Georgia Digital Innovations group at Georgia College and State University - my big question (after I watched a student presentation on their trip overseas):

  • Who has it “better” – an international exchange student circa 2007 who can blog, videochat, IM, Flickr, podcast, e-mail, and have free VoIP talks with their friends and parents back home essentially instantly, or an exchange student from an earlier generation (say, oh, Fall 1985 at Kansai Gaidai?) that had the two-week or greater latency of a handwritten letter to communicate back home with friends and family?

From CoSN 2007 – my big question:

  • Is the interactive whiteboard a boondoggle, or does it create a new way to learn (especially when combined with real-time webconferencing)?

As you may imagine, I have my opinions on these questions.  However, what are yours?  Please comment!

Warm regards, and keep onlinin’,

Gary Dietz