Some reflections from an online workshopper

From the blog entries and comments posted here so far, I get the impression that the crowd participating in the VS workshop in Coleraine had a busy morning. The online version of the workshop was a bit slower, and I suppose one reason for the somewhat low level of activity online could be that those in Coleraine interact “pseudo-virtually” as it was put by one of the participants. Nevertheless, I did take part in some both CALL-related and social chats, spending the most time in the Yaplet chat which was new to me. One of the issues arising here concerns advantages and drawbacks of having chat history saved. In Yaplet, the most recent chat is displayed to you as you log on. This is a good way of catching up when you enter the chat, yet knowing that what you type is saved at least for some time could have an inhibiting effect.

I appreciate the effort to accommodate for people in all different time zones, but personally, I find the synchronous meetings with fellow Eurocallers the most rewarding - for a moment they make me forget that I’m not present at the conference. The photos that are uploaded have a similar effect on me, so all you bloggers out there, please post many photos!

All in all, however, the flexibility that the asynchronicity provides does suit me very well this year, since I have other matters to tend to as well. Caring for a baby while trying to chat synchronously is quite a challenge… Let’s just say that it’s fortunate we’re not using audio :-) .