Tried REAL live blogging today – thoughts on CoverItLive

I just tried using CoverItLive for the last online session I just attended through the eLearning Guild. You can see the results here of this blogging session and here for the session just prior to it where I did my normal “note taking” method.

Brent Schlenker passed me along to it earlier today through his blog and well I just had to give it a try it looked so neat.

It is definitely a really neat tool. It was simple to start using and easy to keep using through the session. There were however a couple of things that stuck me as I was using the tool.

I have a bit of a science background to me, in that is was my primary studies through high school and the beginning academic career. There is one thing that taking a lot of science and geography courses do for a student and that is ridiculous note taking. As I was using CoverItLive during the last session, the majority of the session was a demonstration and there weren’t really notes to take. Therefore, my live blogging post that you can look at has almost a 30 minute gap and you can tell that as a reader because the tool gives you a time line of published entries. (also a neat feature)

Something else that struck me is that once I start then what….I unfortunately don’t have the option of closing my door and concentrating on the online sessions. They occur during my work hours and I need to be available for all the drop-ins that happen (luckily I screen calls and emails though). So with my normal method if I get really distracted or pulled away no one ever knows. I just don’t post the notes. If I start this type of live blogging, then anyone who sees I start and suddenly have to stop might wonder…..hmmmm what happened.

I think therefore, it would be more useful if you can concentrate fully and if you can maintain continuity through the time you are using the tool.

Another feature of my normal note taking that I like is that because the text I enter is just like any other post all the text is searchable. If I can’t remember the speaker (ie: Tony Karrer), but only remember that he mentioned maps during his presentation and I wrote about it, then “maps” becomes a searchable word as does the presenter.

If you look at my posting trying out CoverItLive I put in one line that says “test post”. A search for this didn’t come up. Perhaps I am unclear on how to search for it though.

I did think of another great use for it though and will put it forward to someone here (just have to figure out who). What a great way to take minutes during a meeting? I have so many colleagues here at work that hate minute taking, because they have to take the minutes, then go to their office and type them and then edit, etc. etc. This would capture everything that is happening as it happens, would record the main points, and anyone who couldn’t make it to the meeting could at least watch and see what was going on. One blog for each committee, each using CoverItLive to capture the notes.

There are additional advance features for a price so perhaps some of my queries are addressed there, but it was definitely fun and easy to use. I suggest trying it at least once.