Nancy White, originally uploaded by Josie Fraser.
A couple of weeks ago I was fortunate enough to be able to attend my first e-mint event – an informal seminar around blogging and communities featuring the wonderful Nancy White, online community guru, consultant and blogger, which turned into a very lively group discussion which included the old familiar (and currently on the boil again as poorly informed myspace moral panics emerge as US legislation for those of you who didn't catch it, DOPA was passed by the House of Representatives.) interweb tension of control vs. chaos. I’m firmly against filtering and gates –walled garden solutions might be useful in terms of licensing and liability, but like other filtering solutions they don't encourage a culture where young people are supported to take responsibility for their own actions and to equip themselves for dealing with unwanted encounters with materials or people. My new role on the DfES backed Safe Use of the Internet steering group sees me having to sharpen up my act when it comes to what exactly constitutes useful e-safety education, not to mention to knock-on implications of DOPA.
It was great to be able to thrash some of this out with some very experienced community builders and moderators, and beer. I’ve only recently become a member of e-mint.org, the association for online community professionals, and it’s inspiring to be around such a buzzy group.
The e-mint post on Nancy’s visit is up, as is a post on the event by David Wilcox, as has Robin Hamman from BBC Five Live who co-organized the event along with Lizzie Jackson. Lilia 'Mathemagenic' Efimova came along and it was great meeting her for the first time.
If you don't already subscribe to their podcast feed (what's up with you?!) you’ll also want to listen to the 2005 International Edublog Award winners and EdTechUK favorites EdTechTalk crew Dave Cormier and Jeff Lebow's EdTechTalk 55 - A Discussion about Communities with Nancy White.
And to finish up, why not check out Nancy Whites own excellent series of recent posts on online communities:
Blogs and Communities - some thinking out loud
Blogs and Communities part 2
Blogs and Communities part 3
Blogs and Communities part 4
Blogs and Communities part 5
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