Yesterday, Yale Law School held their "Revenge of the Blog" conference. LawMeme has put together alist of bloggers who reported on the conference.
According to Denise Howell's coverage of the conference, Mickey Kaus described blogs as "wormholes to disparate viewpoints." That's reinforced by reading the various descriptions of the conference itself.
At Pop!Tech, I enjoyed being able to read real-time blog coverage from David Weinberger, Ernie Svenson, and Dan Gillmor, all while watching the speakers live in the Opera House. Why? Because it gave me some "triangulation" of views. They'd think of angles on the speaker I hadn't thought of, and I could read that and factor it into the experience. It was not unlike the kind of whispered conversation I might have with a friend sitting next to me, but I had the "whispered" comments of some pretty smart folks. It enriches the experience.
In fact, this kind of conference blogging is exactly why I want to encourage my students to blog my class next quarter while I'm teaching. I know they want to be typing (I teach in a studio lab), so why not give them the opportunity to have their interactions with the computer fold back into the class, rather than pulling them away from it?
Of course, the conference blogs work because people are there by choice, and want to hear, read, and think about the speakers. I don't know how well that enthusiasm will transfer to the classroom. But I'm hopeful, since I'm teaching electives rather than required courses next quarter. We'll see.
