Thursday 18 June 2009

Where will it all end? - Emerging Technology in the Library Part 1

Creativity and play - that's the message I got from the MMIT North West summer conference. Creativity and play are good and we need to do more of it. Sounds good to me.

The conference started with a very inspiring presentation from Russell Prue, ICT Evangelist, Inventor and Entrepreneur. I can see why he's an evangelist. I wasn't sure what to think when I saw a man in orange braces when I entered the room, but Russell is a very interesting man who is passionate about technology and the ways in which it can be used to great affect. Russell invited audience members to text him during the session and tweet using the tag #RPMMIT (check twitter out for snippets from the day). It was at this point I wished I had a better phone and had borrowed on the eeePCs from work - ho hum. I did do a bit of texting and did take part in the mobile phone survey (that's a survey using your mobile not a survey about mobiles). I thought this could successfully be used in a user ed session because the texting doesn't cost the user and you get immediate feedback.

Russell also talked about a number of gadgets -like the projector phone and the Zpen (which I now want). He talked about how brain training and using a Wii fit Balance Board can help your left and right brain activity. And he asked the question "Are we asking the right questions?" - passing exams is still about memory retention, shouldn't it be more about developing the skills to shift through the wealth of information that is at our fingertips.

How do you train kids for jobs that don't yet exist?

More on MMIT later....