ScienceOnline09 Conference Update

I thought that last year's ScienceOnline conference was great, but this year has had even more sessions, more people, and more fascinating topics. (I got a huge kick out of Henry Gee's summary in poetry form). I missed the evening banquet tonight because of a slight emergency back home that I needed to handle, but the day was jam-packed with tons of blog goodness. I haven't been liveblogging, but I do have a review of the talks I attended today:

First up: Blog-To-Book, moderated by Dave Munger and Tom Levenson. Dave and Tom told us about the role that blogging has played in their experiences with writing print books, and we discussed various issues involved in writing for books vs blogs. Some of the items mentioned were adjusting for a different audience, changing the structure from reporting to truly telling a structured story, and some discussion of why some bloggers want to try writing books. Is it because we feel our writing isn't truly legitimized by blogging, is it for fame and fortune, was it the writing goal even pre-blog? Does blogging help a writer to narrow down their interests for the book, or is it a diversion of time and effort? Someone (can't remember who, sorry!) drew the analogy that a blog entry is to a book what a YouTube video is to a feature film. Overall a very interesting discussion.

Next: Transitions: Changing Your Online Persona as Your Real Life Changes, moderated by ScienceWoman and PropterDoc. I was very interested in this one, as I am approaching graduate school and contemplating how the transition between schools, advisors, and projects will affect my blogging. There was lots of good discussion about pros and cons to being anonymous, how to maintain an online presence without detriment to family/career, and other related topics. Some issues of the difference between the experience of men vs women were given a lot of time, as were the generational overhaul that seems to be slowly coming around, as newer professors can seem to be more comfortable with the idea of blogging than older advisors.

My last session of the morning was Teaching College Science: Blogs and Beyond, moderated by Andrea Novicki and Brian Switek. I am currently a UTA for freshman Honors Organismal Biology, and hope to attain a faculty position some day, so I made sure to attend this one. There were many ideas presented on the advantages and challenges to using blogs in college classrooms. They can be great ways to engage reluctant learners or students who are more comfortable expressing themselves in writing than speaking up in class. Also, it's a great way to present supplemental material and encourage students to delve into the subject matter further in a less regimented, more exploratory way. It could become unwieldy for large classes, though, and there are also privacy issues. Overall, however, the ideas for innovative strategies and beneficial results were very encouraging.

After lunch came the session in which I was a panelist: Blogging Adventure: How to Post from Strange Locations. The other panelists were Kevin Zelnio, Rick MacPherson, Meredith Barrett, Talia Page, Karen James, and Vanessa Woods. We started off with an interactive simulation of blogging in the field, complete with flashing lights, pinching bugs, and pen-stealing anglerfish. If the whole blogging thing falls through, we should set up an amusement park. Then we all shared our stories of blogging from the field, and talked about technical challenges, time constraints, and other obstacles to updating from remote areas. We also talked about why blogging from the field is important: it helps to maintain a connection to the outside world and update family and friends, gets people interested in science, and provides a social context for scientific research. I currently have a proposal under review for my master's thesis, but if it comes through I will have a brand new adventure blogging opportunity in the coming year...stay tuned!

Finally, I attended How to Become a Paid Science Journalist: Advice for Bloggers, moderated by Tom Levenson and Rebecca Skloot. This included lots of great advice on how to pitch ideas to magazines, the importance of remaining aware that editors will judge your writing from any and all of your blog posts, etc.

So, that was my day! Keep in mind that there are four concurrent session in each time slot at this conference, so there is much more going on than one person can relate! Keep an eye on Bora's blog aggregations of the conference updates of writers from all across the science blogosphere.

I have had a great time, but tomorrow I am fleeing these arctic temperatures and heading back to Alabama. I've had a great time meeting and trading ideas with so many people this weekend, and I'm already looking forward to the 2010 conference!