Meeting Support Institute

Sugata Mitra: Can kids teach themselves?
Speaking at LIFT 2007, Sugata Mitra talks about his "Hole in the Wall" project. Young kids in this project figured out how to use a PC on their own -- and then taught other kids. Given this, he asks, what else can children teach themselves and each other?
Watch this talk >>

  The dutch translation of
  'The Learning Meeting and conference in Practice'




  (Politeia, 2008)

BUY THIS BOOK AT OUR BOOKSTORE

The typical one-day conference attended by managers or professionals in search of in-spiration is packed with PowerPoint presentations and offers little opportunity for in-volvement or knowledge sharing. Behind the conventional conference format lurks the transfer model of learning, which finds little support amongst serious students of learn-ing. The professional conference as a forum for knowledge sharing is in dire need of a new learning theory and a more enlightened practice. The notion of human flourishing is offered as basis for theory, and four simple design principles for the so-called “learning conference” are proposed: People go to conferences to 1. get concise input, 2. interpret it in the light of their ongoing concerns, 3. talk about their current projects and 4. meet the other attendees and be inspired by them. Six practical techniques that induce attendees to do these things at the learning conference are presented.

What is the real and perceived connection between things we know and even do, and the moment we learned it? Can we demonstrate that after so many years an individual does something based on what he learned so many years ago at a conference?
How much actually came from conference learning?
How much do we realize that is came from conference learning?

Send in your ideas, research results or thesis to: Maarten.Vanneste@meetingsupport.org

The magazine Convene from PCMA (Professional Convention Management Association) is publishing a series of articles called How Adults Learn. This series of about 10 articles is written by Glen C. Ramsborg, PhD and Sue Tinnish. They are published from 2008 onwards and it will be very useful for those that are interested in the educational side of their meetings. This Convene series, How Adults Learn, is intended to offer meeting professionals a new paradigm, focused on optimizing the adult learning experience. This first article describes how four major factors — learning environments, fragmented audiences, technology, and networks — affect how adults learn.

When Presenting More Material Results in Less Understanding

No more PowerPoint presentations - let's have audience participation!

Abstract
Far too many meetings are chock full of PowerPoint presentations.
At a learning meeting, on the other hand, there are only a few presentations, the audiences experiences are brought to light, and everybody gets to know everybody else. In the knowledge society, the participants are the valuable commodity.

IB RAVN is the research group director for Learning Lab Denmark
in Copenhagen, Denmark. Ravn can be reached at -email-.
Presentations from experts are still useful, but they must be few,
brief and to the point.
(For a more complete resource, read the book from Ib Ravn, "Learning Meetings and conferences in Practice". M.V.)

At an educational session during MPI’s PEC in Houston 2008, I witnessed the use of graphical facilitation. Sue Tinnish had invited a graphical facilitator who, during the course of the session, built a large visual representation of the discussion.
On a large piece of paper, about 1m  / 3ft high and 3m / 9ft wide, the graphical facilitator was drawing, writing and creating graphs of what was presented and discussed.
At the end of the session, all participants ware invited to add some of their own visual creations and some of us did.