Did you spend most of your Summit sitting in a seemingly endless series of presentations in which some speaker was droning on and on whilst clicking through a lengthy set of PowerPoint presentations? (That's a commercial version of OpenOffice Impress, for those who aren't in the know.) Well, if you did you certainly weren't in the Education track, where PowerPoint was declared illegal, that participation from every attendee was the rule for each and every session, and that each session open with gunner (Moderator Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary) declaring with his cheerfully tyrannical way that all laptops were to be turned off and put away.

The way most of our session have worked was through breakout sessions, meaning that participants would be separated into small groups and all tasked to go off, perform some task or engage in some particular discussion, then return and report to the whole group what they have done or decided. That’s right, you shrinking violet, there's nowhere for you to hide!

This approach to the Summit had a number of positive effects. We as a group all got to know one another and breakaway groups were structured to ensure that people were groups with others they did not yet know well. Since one of the points of a conference like this is to network amongst one's peers, this was a great benefit. Another advantage was that we in the Education track started out with the audacious plan of concluding the Summit having made genuine progress in determining which priorities the open education movement should hold. By working within a format of all inclusive participation, we made a great deal of progress in that direction.

There was one difficulty that came from frequently breaking away into small groups, however. Often we would come up with a set of different topics to discuss, and would group together based on which topic was of the greatest interest to each participant. The problem with that was that often there were many more than one small group we'd each wish to join!

Today's best example for me was the Open Education Project Clinic session. This session started with four of us already involved in open education projects stating the nature of their project and what problems they were having that were the most seemingly intractable. We then split up based on to which group we thought we could give the best advice, spending the session consulting with that project's leader. Well, while this was a fascinating exercise that really led to improvement in the way some projects would be able to proceed, it also meant making the same difficult choice as in many other sessions: which group to choose?

I know, I know. Stop whining, that sort of decision to make is not exactly Sophie's Choice. But still, for those of who work in places where we only get to interact every so often with our peers in the open education movement, such a choice can be a tough one to make!

tags: Dubrovnik Croatia education summit07

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