[photo by Slightlynorth]

I probably won’t notice much difference between Phoenix and Phai– I mean Fairbanks– seeing that I’ll be in frosty air-conditioned climes, but I’m looking forward to the 2008 WCET Conference nonetheless.

Day 1 (aka day 3 with almost no sleep for me… I left town on the red-eye flight after teaching class last night) is pre-conference workshop day. I– along with Scott Leslie and Jared Stein– will be leading a full-day workshop on Weaving the PLE. I think it will be great fun and valuable even if there is the sad possibility that our wrong-headedness will result in an apoplexy for D’Arcy and a yelp from Alan that can be heard clear across the Atlantic. If you’re interested, the workshop outline, notes, and links are available.

A few days later I will be part of a panel on Information Fluency. This could be interesting. I was strongly opposed to this topic being moved to the “Institutional Policies and Practices” thread for a couple of reasons, most importantly that it feels to me that the goal of being information fluent stands opposed to the practices of the institution, but we hope to generate some interesting discussion nonetheless. I am firmly convinced that information fluency is going to be a key model for the next 5-10 years… I am also convinced that most places have a very limited view of what information fluency is– and so are missing some important aspects that make it truly valuable– and there is a lot more to be considered in light of, for example, multiple literacies and the participatory web. At any rate, El Boss aka Curt Madison and I brainstormed and came up with an interesting way of making sense of digital literacy, information fluency and the institution. And I will get to play the part of the gadfly, which usually suits me!

Also of note is the Creepy Treeo panel on the Creepy Treehouse and Ann aka AlphaBunny on Online Community Building. I’m disappointed that the debate format hasn’t returned– all the feedback I got last year was that the debate was the best format– and the WCET conference has been slow to evolve… but it is getting better and better and I am optimistic about the offerings this year.