Big Learning Event 2013

What happens when you bring together 5 big thinkers that span academic boundaries? Can you create space for new ideas to emerge? That's the idea behind the UW Madison BLE
Two Design Ideas 
Wall of Ideas: Participants were invited to post themes and ideas on the blue sticky wall
Use of Social Media: Twitter and Facebook were integrated into the design. The hosts used Ipads to follow social media . They shared questions, themes and quotes from Twitter/ Facebook through out the day. Check out the BLE on Facebook, the conversation continues

Content All of the speakers were fascinating. Here are two of my take aways from Etiene Wenger who spoke about Social Learning and Communities of Practice. His big question : how to we help people learn better. Learning is creating shared meaning. Convening Power- bringing people together takes a kind of power. Not everyone can do it. This is boundary work: helping people to cross boundaries and create shared meaning. Community keeper: an important role in communities of practice that pays attention to and encourages distributed leadership. CKs don’t intervene in process unless power is being used to silence voices.

Two suggestions:
Improve Interaction between participants: Create space and time for participants to dialogue between and among themselves. This happened at the networking reception and lunch. I’d build it into the design. Movement: We sat too much! Cheers to Rebecca who was asked to lead a yoga break!!