Session description: What is a sellable idea? How do you develop one? Is your idea enough for a book, is there more you can do to develop it, or should it just be a magazine article or series of blog posts? This will be a hands-on nuts and bolts workshop: Come with ideas to pitch. Better yet, bring a short (1 page or less) written proposal to read and workshop. This workshop will provide handouts on proposal writing as well as sample proposals you can use to help develop your own in the future. Useful for anyone hoping to someday write for print or online publications.
The session was led by Rebecca Skloot (@RebeccaSkloot), who enlisted the assistance of David Dobbs (@David_Dobbs), Ivan Oransky (@ivanoransky), and Cliff Wiens (@CliftonWiens).
Here’s the session wiki page.
#scio10 aftermath: my tweets from “An Open History of Science”.
Session description: We will be talking about how the history of science and the history of the open-access movement have intersected. Steven Johnson touches on this theme in his latest book, The Invention of Air, in that 18th century British polymath Joseph Priestley was a strong advocate of publishing scientific data widely in order to create a greater dialogue between scientists. While Johnson only mentions this briefly in the case of Priestley, this theme runs strongly through the history of science and is what makes the debate over the patenting of genes or the availability of open-access journals such important topics today.
The session was led by John McKay and Eric Michael Johnson (@primatediaries).
Here’s the session wiki page.
#scio10 aftermath: my tweets from “Science and Entertainment: Beyond Blogging”.
Session description: Over the past several years, the Internet has tangibly changed the way that movies and TV shows are produced and marketed. Blogs will call out ridiculous scientific errors found in stories and the critique can go viral very quickly; therefore, science advising is on the rise in an attempt to add some semblance of plausibility to your favorite flicks. As tools on the web continue to evolve, filmmakers and television creators are finding new ways to connect with and market to their viewers. For some shows, this has meant tapping into the science featured in their content, ranging from an exploration of the roots of the science that has been fictionalized to the expansion of a scientific topic explored in a documentary. In this session, we’ll look at how online video and social networking tools are playing a part in connecting science, Hollywood and its fans.
The session was led by Tamara Krinsky (@tamarakrinsky) and Jennifer Ouellette.
Here’s the session wiki page.
#scio10 aftermath: my tweets from “Talking Trash: Online Outreach from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch”.
Session description: Debris in the North Pacific Gyre received unprecedented attention in 2009 with voyages from the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, Project Kaisei, and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Each voyage integrated online outreach into its mission, but emphasized very different aspects of the problem. What are the challenges of creating a major outreach effort from one of the most isolated places on earth? How can scientists, journalists, and educators balance “exciting findings live from the field!” with “highly preliminary unpublished non-peer-reviewed data that our labwork might contradict”? And why is the public so interested in the issue of trash in the ocean, anyway?
The session was led by Miriam Goldstein (@oystersgarter), Lindsey Hoshaw (@thegarbagegirl), and Annie Crawley (@AnnieCrawley).
Here’s the session wiki page.
#scio10 aftermath: my tweets from “Rebooting Science Journalism in the Age of the Web”.
Session description: Our panel of journalist-blogger hybrids – Carl Zimmer, John Timmer, Ed Yimmer Yong, and David Dobbs- will discuss and debate the future of science journalism in the online world. Are blogs and mainstream media the bitter rivals that stereotypes would have us believe, or do the two sides have common threads and complementary strengths? How will the tools of the Internet change the art of reporting? How will the ongoing changes strengthen writing about science? How might these changes compromise or threaten writing about science? In a world where it’s possible for anyone to write about science, where does that leave professional science journalists? And who actually are these science journalists anyway?
The session was led by Ed Yong (@edyong209), Carl Zimmer (@carlzimmer), John Timmer (@j_timmer), and David Dobbs (@David_Dobbs).
Here’s the session wiki page
#scio10 aftermath: my tweets from “Casting a wider net: Promoting gender and ethnic diversity in STEM”.
Session description: We will introduce programs that attract wider audiences to science, math, and engineering at various institutions/education levels, programs that mentor students (high school, undergrad & grad students) in research and education excellence. How Social Media tools can be used to raise the profile of and build support networks for under-represented scientists and engineers.
The session was led by Anne Jefferson (@highyanne) with assistance from Lyndell Bade (@lyndellmbade), Evelyn Lynge, and Zuska. DNLee (@FeteSociety) was to have led the session with Anne but did not make it to the conference. The presentation included research conducted by Pat Campbell.
Here’s the session wiki page.
#scio10 aftermath: collecting my tweets from the conference sessions.
Last night I arrived home safely from ScienceOnline2010. As expected, the conference was tremendously engaging and useful, as well as being a rollicking good time — so much so that the only blog post I managed to post while there was the Friday Sprog Blog. (Major props to the elder Free-Ride offspring for taking notes from our conversation and letting me bring them with me.)
However, as some others have noted (for example, drdrA), I did manage to maintain an online presence by “Tweeting” my real-time notes from the conference sessions I attended. And, as a step toward blogging something sensible about those sessions, I’m going to compile my Tweets for each and put them up as posts — sort of “open notebook” blog post writing.
Let me pause a moment for a few observations on the experience of Tweeting a conference session as opposed to taking notes in my trusty notebook (which is what I usually do).
Friday Sprog Blogging: biodiversity, I choose you!
Longtime readers of this blog may recall that the elder Free-Ride offspring has a fondness (occasionally verging on obsession) for Pokemon cards. This means I had no choice but to involve my offspring in Dave Ng’s Phylomon project:
[W]hat can we do to get kids engaged with the wonderful creatures that are all around them? They obviously have the ability and the passion to care about such things, but it appears misplaced – they’ll spend a ton of resources and time tracking down fictional things, when they could easily do the same with the very wildlife around them. As a bonus, if they do learn a little more about biodiversity, they will hopefully appreciate their surroundings a little more, not to mention the possibility of just being outside a little more.
In any event, this is why I’m please to share with you a project coming out of my lab, that will hopefully do a small part in tackling this challenge. And, with the help of a rather large group of young students, we have decided to call it the “Phylomon Project.”
What is this? Well, the website describes it as follows:…it’s an online initiative aimed at creating a Pokemon card type resource but with real creatures on display in full “character design” wonder. Not only that – but we plan to have the scientific community weigh in to determine the content on such cards (note that the cards above are only a mock-up of what that content might be), as well as folks who love gaming to try and design interesting ways to use the cards. Then to top it all off, members of the teacher community will participate to see whether these cards have educational merit. Best of all, the hope is that this will all occur in a non-commercial-open-access-open-source-because-basically-this-is-good-for-you-your-children-and-your-planet sort of way.
So, here are the elder Free-Ride offspring’s preliminary thoughts about the project:
#scio10 preparation: Where does civility hit the skids?
Today, on account of the fact that I’m pinned down doing course updating activities, I present you with a poll. In answering the question, go ahead and use whatever is your preferred definition of “civility”.
For which topic do you expect online civility to collapse the fastest?(survey)
Of course, use the comments to discuss to your heart’s content (including where I went wrong in constructing the poll options).
Friday Sprog Blogging: fossils.
Dr. Free-Ride: What have you been learning in science?
Younger offspring: I’ve been learning how to make fossils, and imprints.
Dr. Free-Ride: Tell me how.
