A few years ago the OERxDomains21 Conference, a conference of firsts in 2021, fired up the world of online conferencing against the dark backdrop of the pandemic. It was an amazing event, and, as I wrote at the time:
…it’s been a career highlight for me, to lead my team on a rollercoaster ride which ended in an event we are all proud of. WE WILL DO IT AGAIN.
I wrote that in April 2021 and as it turns out, WE DID IT AGAIN. This week in fact as another event, another conference of firsts, rocked the radio: DS106RadioSummerCamp.
When I pitched the idea to Jim and the team at Reclaim, I tried to go all in:
Imagine summer camp, on the radio, connecting with friends old and new as you tell stories around the campfire, reflecting on the year that’s been and learning a whole lot along the way.
At the time, I had no idea whether it would be possible for us to pull this off at all and indeed whether anyone would turn up in the middle of August for a week of radio on DS106Radio… and how we would somehow pull this all together into a coherent schedule for folk to follow.
Making it open
One of the things we all agreed one from the outset is that the event would be completely free and open to all, and that all the resources would similarly open and easy to access, download and share again. We get open and we do open, and to round it off you ALSO have broadcasts and documentation of how it works behind the scenes from how to create the podcast recordings to how to host your very own radio station. Reclaim rocks open!
Making it more inclusive and accessible
The other thing we wanted to make happen was to make the event more accessible. Radio has some limitations from the outset, and so we started to experiment with recordings and transcripts as a way to help folk access the event in different formats and across time zones. Thanks to a phenomenal response to our open call, we had a lot of speakers and guest DJs join us on air over the course of the week.
Making it fun
My favourite thing about the Summer Camp was that is was FUN. Having fun on the internet, with friends, it was amazing. The schedule looked incredible once it all came together… and the reality lived up to the hype. There were so many creative sessions making the most of the medium. Kudos to everyone who gave this a go! We salute you.
Making it golden
It’s no coincidence that both of these events were made possible with the incredible team at Reclaim. There is so much gold dust sprinkled around in this space where experimenting is the order of the day and curiosity is prized so highly! That’s what makes it possible to make events like this happen… and to give us the golden moments that we remember in years to come.
We did it again.