EdBlogger 2003
Just got back from EdBlogger 2003 San Francisco Hosted by Galileo Academy of Science and Technology. Calling it 2003 implies that there was an 2002 gathering, but this was in fact the first edBlogger conference and hopefully not the last. To my knowledge this was also the first blogging conference dedicated to blogging in the class room. We talked about the benefits of Blogs, and blogging software. We also discussed at great lengths the shortfalls of many blogging platforms, and the features we as education bloggers need to make them work in a more appropriate fashion. 
I got to meet a lot of Edu-Bloggers who I am sure I will be in contact with over the next few months. Josh allen (photo) and I have decided to work together on themes that utilize the incomplete "Modules" feature. Modules was part of the "New Default" theme. It allowed for a compartmentalized theme, presenting the user with editable areas they could use to make quick changes to things like footer, banners, and sidebar content, without having to dig through the template. 
We talked to Jake Savin about creating a standardized set of "modules" so users can change themes, yet keep their hand tooled sidebar/footer content. Also Jake seemed receptive to fixing Manila's "appearance" control panel. It was designed to give users the ability to change background, and link colors, but does not work with themes that utilize CSS. Jakes says that the appearance pref can me tweaked to give theme designers (me) the ability to design themes that can be modified by the users, without them slogging though the CSS. That will be great!
Saturday I gave a class on Intermediate Manila. We talked about some of the hidden features in Manila. We also talked about combining features to create new, and useful structures. I prepared a few slides on the subject, that I have made available here.
I drove to the Bay area with Erin Clerico (photo), and Robert Canales (photo), who's a budding blog-designer. Along with the good information we acquired at the conference, we had a good time sight-seeing, and sampling some of the fine cuisine the city has to offer. Thanks to Pat Delaney for inviting us up, and I hope to do it again next year.
I have a photo Gallery available here.