Amy Cohen Efron touched upon a topic in her vlog regarding the number of people present at the conference. You can see it on Daveynin's Thing that noticeably shows a picture of some chairs sit unoccupied (or go here at the Flickr site). Although this was shot near the beginning of the conference and I did see a slight increase on those empty chairs becoming occupied along with several more people standing just outside of the conference room. Perhaps the became mildly interested as they passed through the SAC building on their way to their Post Office.
The conference was plainly open to anyone who happened to walk into the main building area of the IKJ SAC. Still, Amy wondered, as well as many of us perhaps, whether the lack of students who did not show up was because of the lack of advertising. Or was it something else that we don't know about? Why didn't we see a chock-full of students sitting in those chairs along with many others standing and milling around just outside of Gallaudet's Sprint Multi-purpose Room trying to see what's being said by panelists where the live webcast conference took place?
I, too, noticed all this but it was before the beginning when I first arrived at Gallaudet's Sprint Multipurpose Room about 45 minutes before it was set to began at 9 AM. Jill was there trying to get things readied. Nearly hyperventilating while she tried line up the rows of chairs with accurate precision. Ok. I'm fibbing here. But I did step in and I was the first person to introduce myself to her in person but she had to guess who I was first. And, of course, she guessed it correctly. Although I arrived on campus a full two hours earlier at 7 AM, I took my time as I strolled across the campus to see what was new and not. Looking back, I don't remember seeing any paper advertisement. If they were on those advertising boards like ones in the SAC building, I didn't see them. Of course, I didn't bother to really take a closer look either.
Now, this observation of mine is not meant to be critical. What's important is that the video of the conference has gotten out to the masses via in a live format reaching out to many, many, many people. No doubt about that. And the archived videos of the four panels are now available and will reach even more people over the next several months until the next Blogger/Vlogger Conference at Gallaudet (keeping fingers crossed). This is a good faith exercise of mine on examining on not what went wrong, which is a negative word, but what we can do so that the next Blogger/Vlogger Conference will be even more successful.
Here are my observations on the possibilities of why few Gallaudet students watched the conference at the IKH Student Academic Center?
1. They didn't know it was going to take place at Gallaudet? Lack of flyers around campus letting them know?
2. Well, the conference did take place on a Saturday. I guess we all can remember what we were like sleeping in on a Saturday morning til about 11 or 12 PM after a long, *ahem*, night of studying on a Friday night. No, seriously. ;-)
3. Not many students at Gallaudet actually read blogs that often (but that might change with the increase on deaf/hh vloggers). Now, this could actually be plausible. Why? Well, I have a Sitemeter on my blogsite (scroll down at the very bottom to see the button) that records the IP addresses of those who visited my blog. I noticed people from Gallaudet do visit my blog but not that many compared to the rest of them from all over the United States and other countries. Very small by comparison with the exception of during the protest period.
4. Although students may have been informed via bloggers/vloggers, forums, IMs, emails and such who talked about the upcoming conference. They may have simply been not interested to spend a *WHOLE DAY* on a Saturday (remember, Saturdays are precious times for a student to spend their time on something better like, again, sleep in. Ok. Maybe that's not the only reason) to watch a bunch of older vloggers and bloggers who are mostly in their 30s, 40s and 50s. There were no younger bloggers or vloggers around at the conference that I could see. Especially of those who are currently a student at Gallaudet University. Although Gallaudet University does have a blogsite for Gallaudet students to participate in although many of the topics are not as sophisticated nor broadly covered on many different issues including deaf and non-deaf issues.
I did a bit more research on this whether there is an apparent lack of interest on blogging by Gallaudet University students. After looking around I concluded that it does appear that there is a general disinterest on blogging itself. Seriously, if you think about this, there are more bloggers or vloggers who older and/or are alumni of Gallaudet Unversity than there are Gallaudet students who do blog/vlog. Why is this so? Perhaps it has to do with having more time, confidence and resources to do the blogging work. I suppose many students would rather spend their time, if I'm not mistakened, on deaf forums, chats, emails and IMs rather than do the actual blogging itself which would be like doing more homework to them. Kind of makes sense if you look at it that way. Not a very glamorous nor exciting to do so. This could all boil down to the simple fact that the younger and older generations have a different agenda when it comes to Gallaudet University.
Yet Gallaudet University tries to get students and educators interested into blogging. I'm sure there'll be an increase on student vloggers in the near term since vlogging is a recent development but I would suggest that computer labs and library install some webcams so students can have a choice between vlogging or blogging. And have special rooms that can allow students to vlog more effectively and professionally (a la Joey Baer). Although I will maintain that encouraging and developing one's own writing skill would prove much more beneficial in the long run.
Now, I don't think this conference message went entirely unnoticed because this was an event that was attended mostly by alumni of Gallaudet University rather than students curious enough to attend. Perhaps the word "blogging" scared students off? But it is nice to know that the four archived videos of the four panel sessions will go not unwatched either. They will be a good source of educational materials for Gallaudet classrooms to have and discuss this semester and the next following semesters for years to come. Gallaudet professors, are you listening? Dr. Davila, are you listening, too? Do students know even how to blog? Do they even know what a blog/vlog is?
All is not lost upon the students on missing the conference. What could probably be more well served right now is to have conference videos uploaded on YouTube and Google videos and have them tagged under "deaf," "conference," and "Gallaudet" and get them circulated out into the public some more.
Regardless of what people may say, I say that this conference was a smashing success out there on the internet and will be discussed for years to come.
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