Having heard about the WordCamp Ed event in Washington DC, I’m thinking of organising a WordCamp, focussing on the use of WordPress in HE and FE in the UK. Would anyone be interested in helping with the organisation of this?
There is some support for organising WordCamps from Automattic. A lot of the items listed there would be easy to facilitate with support from one of our institutions. I’d be happy to ask the University of Lincoln. We’re just off the main North-South East Coast rail trunk, but the access isn’t bad from London up to Edinburgh, and it’s a good, modern university, with decent facilities in a historic city worth visiting.
I’m sure there would be a lot of interest in attending. It could appeal to teachers, students, researchers, ICT and web dev staff. We could appeal for the involvement of edubloggers who have a lot of experience in advocating the use of blogs in HE and FE.
There was a WordCamp in Birmingham in July 2008. We could contact the organisers of that event for advice as well as the organisers of the DC event.
The day might be organised like this:
- Registration and welcome
- Keynote
- Live WordPressMU install and set up. A useful overview for both administrators and users. Also introduces the language of blogging which people will hear constantly throughout the day. i.e. ‘posts’, ‘pages’, ‘tags’, categories’, ‘blogroll’, ‘plugins’, ‘themes’, etc.
- Two or three presentations with Q&A on how people are using WordPress in education (maybe one from a marketing perspective, the others from a teaching and learning perspective)
- Lunch
- Keynote
- Special interest group sessions: research groups, teachers, students, marketing, administration, development, etc.
- Group feedback
- Presentation on forthcoming WordPress features. Integration of WP with other (social) services. Intro to BuddyPress and BBPress as extensions to WordPressMU.
- Close
Is anyone interested in helping organise a WordCamp(Ed) in the UK? Please leave comments below and join our new Google Group.
Hi Joss
The main hub for WordCamp UK is http://uk.wordcamp.org/
Perhaps float your idea on the WordCamp UK mailing list (registration required)? Details on the WordCamp UK wiki http://wiki.wordcampuk.tonyscott.org.uk/
Excellent. Thanks Tony. I'll do that.
Would love to help. I'm based in Lincoln, develop WordPress sites commercially, and gave a couple of talks at Wordcamp UK 2008.
Well, that's a fantastic coincidence – you're in Lincoln? We should talk about other WordPress work, too.
That would be great. You should have my email address in the system. Maybe we could go for a beer and a chat?
Me too, a beer and a chat sounds great… i’m based in Yorkshire but i’m sure I could contribute something !!
Hi Joss,
Great news! I’m organizing the WordCamp Ed DC event, and in close touch with organizers of another WordCamp Ed event in the states scheduled for early next year. We can provide webspace and announce this on wordcamped.org when things get moving — feel free to email me to discuss this further.
Cheers,
Dave
Dave, thanks for getting in touch and for the offer of assistance.
Joss
Sounds interesting I am also from Lincoln but work at the university of Nottingham.
Although I am not directly responsible our team is involved in blog rollouts and I am a big fan of wordprEss
Wordcamp UK is happening weekend of 17th and 18th July 2010 – Ticket sales close 11th July if you are still interested in the discussion about WordPress in Education catch up with me there