Dennis,

Your figures are a bit different to the ones I see. Looking at the main forum page the totals are as follows:

1. Young Learners - 334
2. Learning Technologies - 309
3. TTEd - 284
4. LMCS - 205
5. Learner Autonomy - 189 

There has been a total of 3022 posts by 1707 registered users over a period of four weeks, which is not exactly what I'd call 'disappointing'. Add that to the over 15,000 visitors from over 160 countries and I'd even say that's a pretty amazing success story.

I think you'll always get more 'lurkers' than writers in this sort of forum - everyone is so busy that finding time to contribute regularly in a meaningful way is pretty tricky. However, that doesn't mean they haven't benefitted from the conversations taking place in the forums. Perhaps it's better to have quality over quantity - the numbers are largely meaningless, but the quality of contributions is more appreciable.

Gavin

Gavin,

Thanks for writing. Of course you are absolutely right about the issue being quality and not quantity. My comment about "disappointing" was influenced, I guess, by my experience with lots of email lists. The Yahoogroups YL(T) list that I moderate has over 550 members and it is only a handful, under 10, who take part in discussions. When I set up a number of sessions in Elluminate with well-known webheads for the first session there was 1 participant from the list, apart from me, and for the 2nd. session - 2. I partly solved the problem by throwing subsequent meetings open to all and sundry and got attendance up to 15-16.  I guess I was worried that YL Cardiff was about to go the same way as the e-list.

In fact, it most certainly did not. There were a number oif excellent, full contributions ranging over several important issues from 6 or 7 devoted teachers. And as a direct result of taking part in YL Cardiff Online, two people joined IATEFL. 

The online videos have made a terrific impact. So although I'm personally worried about low levels of participation - because it make me wonder if I, as a list moderator, am getting it wrong, not successfully asessing what it is the punters want - it is clear that for a few committed individuals Cardiff Online has been an incredible experience.

Dennis

Hi, Dennis,

Four of my Chinese colleagues told me that they have been visiting our site and have been reading what we have been discussing on it. They don't want to write because they are very insecure about their English. This is their first contact with a big international organisation like IATEFL. I think that probably they are not the only ones who have visited our site and read it, but haven't said anything. I think it will take some time for newcomers to build up the courage to participate actively:):):):)

best, iskra

Iskra,

It is interesting to hear of your colleagues who have been quietly reading our discussions without feeling self-confident enough to take part. But private, quiet reading is participating, too and I hope they realise how welcome they are to do what they are doing.

I was closely associated with the running of a certain list, but there were so few contributorsthat I proposed we closed it down  There was a muted uproar and one member wrote memorably:  "I read four newspapers a day, but I have never written to any of them."

All is well. It's my personal tick to be constantly wondering if things are being done as well as possible.

I gather on other forums, too, it begins to look as if cardiff Online is coming to an end. But we are lucky. There in yltsig, and next week there is a fielded discussion entitled: "CLIL revisited" led by John Clegg, Jane Brewster and Keith Kelly, an Englishman living and working in Plovdiv, Bulgaria.

Anna,

Thanks for posting again. [In about three weeks' time my wife and I will be in Poland both presenting separately at a conference  at the university in Stettin, as we call it.  :-)  ]

The reasons why people doi and don't post messages to electronic lists fascinates me - one wants to understand. A book that several people have recommended to me is about net-enabled social tools, and I guess that is what electronic lists are, is:

Here Comes Everybody - The power of organizing without Organizations by Clay Shirley, Penguin Press, New York, 2008  ISBN 978 1 59420 153 0

Its on my list of books to read NOW.....

Err ...I have to admit to being an extremely impressed lurker ... if I'd known there was such competition between forums I'd have been posting wildly ... ah well ... still time to catch up eh? I would like to say that in the 4 days I spent at Cardiff I probably spent an equal amount of time lurking online here ... fabulous resource (especially as I lost all my notes in transit back home!)

Hello,

Like Dennis I'm a list moderator elsewhere - and I was also a moderator on the IATEFL Exeter online forum last year...

First, I'm wondering how Gavin totted up the posts to over 3000 as I made it considerably less so am wondering if that included tweets?

I looked back at the Exeter site (yes, it's still there) to look for clues - anyway, it looked like there were more posts last year. I have been trying to figure out why ... It could be the interface? Maybe it's the access - I think last year the 'register' option came before the 'guest' option?  I wonder if more people would post if users had to register - just thinking that if you are 'lurking' and spot something to reply to, then realise you haven't got an account ...

Last year I liked the feature of creating a profile rather than doing 'introductions' - perhaps that helped people to relate to the posters - and it certainly helped moderators to respond. You know, if you discount the introductions threads and moderator comments, that would drastically reduce the number of posts!

Maybe the age of the discussion list is past? Maybe like Gavin said in his session people just Google what they need to know these days? Maybe we have moved on from fora? I mean, even the number of Learning Tec posts seemed to be down.

Oh! Another thing I have spotted is that there are quite a lot of new names on posts (a good thing), yet surprisingly names I remember of enthusiastic contributors last year aren't appearing - which seems odd. Maybe it's the advertising? (I did my bit for publicising!) One last observation is the lack of controversy - with one noteable exception! Everyone seemed to agree with each other - no healthy opposition! But it can be scary disagreeing in public with people you don't know! Equally, it can be daunting to post your thoughts and expose your feelings on such a public forum -I mean, you never know who might be reading - is it recession fever - people are worried something they write could be misinterpreted by their lurking boss! (Hey - that was another neat feature last year - being able to see who was online and who had been online!)

Anyway - it's still an amazing achievement and I really appreciate all the efforts everyone involved has made to set up this site ...

Excuse my ramblings and random thoughts!

Heather

Hi Heather, foxymoron, Anna, Iskra, Dennis & all those lurking

I too have been doing a bit of lurking on this conversation and I wanted to comment on some of the points you've raised.

First, I should point out that the admin team get to see the message stats so I can confirm that there have been around 3,100 messages posted to the forums so far. I should also mention that we have a hidden moderators' only forum which accounts for around 150 messages posted - these are also included in this total.

Last year - for Exeter Online - there were around 3,700 messages posted (the site was open a bit earlier than this year) which was a 50% increase on the previous 2007 Aberdeen Online

But these numbers are largely irrelevant - what we're trying to achieve is quality rather than quantity - so yes - you can look at the numbers but they really only tell one aspect of what this experience has meant to those lurking, actively exchanging ideas and participating in a large, diverse community of teachers and educators which was only created 3 weeks before the f2f conference.

Other features we offered this year

It may be that the twitter channel and the ability for users to comment on session pages and video sessions has provided other ways for people to participate and share their ideas

I was looking at all the #iatefl tweets posted at http://search.twitter.com/search?q=IATEFL earlier and they really are fascinating. Our twitter channel has certainly provided an additional dimension to the project this year and has clearly given those ‘outside' the conference a unique insight into what was taking place in real-time.

Oh the profile thing - you're right Heather - I'm afraid in the rush to get the whole project up and running we failed to incorporate this feature
but we had planned to make this a feature of Cardiff Online - it'll be back
next year!

Finally, I wanted to share the comment below. I think we've achieved a great deal this year and we're confident that in a few weeks Cardiff
Online will be close to reaching around 20,000 teachers worldwide.

I'd like to thank all those presenters who allowed us to film their sessions in Cardiff and all the other presenters who have generously uploaded their session materials to the Cardiff Online website.

I'd also like to thank our Cardiff Online forum moderators for their dedication and congratulate the Cardiff Online team
http://iatefl.britishcouncil.org/2009/cardiff-online-team

From the feedback we're receiving I think we can certainly say it's been a rewarding experience for many teachers who couldn`t attend the Cardiff IATEFL Conference this year.

I received the following message from a member of AzETA (The Azerbaijan English Teachers' Association) who followed the conference online.

--

IATEFL Conference is one of the greatest events in many
teachers' lives. I personally have always wanted to participate in the
Conference. This year brought me the chance to make my dream come true.Thank you for everything.

--

Best wishes

Julian & Cardiff Online Team

Julian and Cardiff Online team,

Thank you so very much for your work, and thank you, Julian, for yoiur long posting to this forum.

Like Heather, I spend a lot of time as a moderator on a number of lists wondering whether discussion lists function as well as they used to. What is clear from this forum alone, though, is that for a few people Cardiff Online and the YL Forum  have provided a deep, rich exciting experience.

Dennis

Just to say that hmbaba, Heather, is actually one of my Second Life avatars scripted to praise me in public places.  :-)

Dennis

Congratulations and my special complement on a nicely arranged, neat, caring and with humour job as a moderator(?). The lists of recordings, live sessions, resources impressed me most. I wish I were apointed to your forum but I was on TEA forum and we had very few visitors. I join you with the Easter celebrations. Olga Penkovsky

Ah well, Olga, way down here on the YL Forum, you learn from the Master of Moderatoring himself...

Heather

Olga and mbaba and Iskra,

Thank you for all the nice things you say. You may like to club together and arrange for me to go on a course where even the aged can be taught to type fast and accurately and spell correctly.

At the front of my old Penguin edition of Lawrence of Arabia's : "Seven Pillars of Wisdom" ...On p6, 7, 18 you spell your camel's name suchandsuch. On pages 213m, 175, 891 etc. though, you spell it soandso.

Lawrence's answer?  "She was a marvellous beast."

As I just wrote on another thread:

 I think there are signs our part of Cardiff Online is running out of steam. That's normal, if a little sad. Anyone want to send a nearly final message?

Dennis