john hawks weblog

paleoanthropology, genetics and evolution

Backchannel panel

Tue, 2010-03-23 11:06 -- John Hawks

Jay Rosen offers some interesting advice about organizing a panel in the age of Twitter: "How the Backchannel Has Changed the Game for Conference Panelists".

I'm thinking about organizing a session for the AAPA meetings next year, in a way that would be significantly more interactive than the usual series of stand-and-talks. I'll be interested to see this year how many people are posting their reactions to talks using the "backchannel."

(via Bora Zivkovic, who has many additional thoughts with respect to ScienceOnline)

UPDATE (2010-03-25): Danah Boyd describes her own horrendous experience with a live Twitterwall showing behind her during a presentation.

Tags: 
meetings
media

Neandertals

For years, I've worked on their bones. Now I'm working on their genes. Read more about the science studying these ancient people.

Denisova

From a finger bone of an ancient human came the record of a completely unexpected population. My lab is working on the science of the Denisova genome.

Acceleration

The advent of agriculture caused natural selection to speed up greatly in humans. We're uncovering some of the ways that populations have rapidly changed during the last 10,000 years.

Malapa

Just outside Johannesburg, the Malapa site is producing some of the most exciting finds in human evolution. This site is the headquarters of the Malapa Soft Tissue Project.