No Comments// Posted in Blab, english, learning, reflection, speaking, talk by Nor Fadzleen Sa don on 09.26.15.

After 9 days on Blab, I’ve decided to host my first Blab.

Prior to this, I was mainly observing and jumping in as co-speaker in some Blabs that caught my interests. The openness of conversation enables user to simply engage in verbal discourse or in written form. For newbies, after registering your Blab account using your Twitter credentials, simply click ‘start a new Blab’ on the right-hand corner and proceed to typing the topic of your Blab. I suggest that you choose a catchy title that encapsulates the main topic of discourse. Next, choose 3 tags related to your Blab so people who are interested in the topic could easily retrieve your Blab later on. You can then decide whether to promptly launch the Blab or schedule it at a specific date and time.

 

The first speaker I had on my Blab was Kevin Cao, a visually-impaired  DJ from New York. He shared about his experience chatting on Blab and how it connected him to others who faced disabilities such as cerebral palsy, autism to name a few. I find this fact fascinating as it proves the significant impact of a social media platform, particularly live streaming platform in providing catalytic opportunities for lifelong learning for those facing disability. He found Blab as a great place to change viewpoints on music as well as his other interests in life with users from all over the world. It’s a great platform to show awareness on disabilities. However, Kevin did express his concern that there could be more improvements needed to enhance the inclusive education for the visually impaired, especially using Augmented Reality and voice-activated mobile apps. I feel this is the real-time feedback that educators need to know, in order to engage and assist learners with disabilities, in learning more effectively.

Then, I had a great discussion with Vanessa who lives in Brooklyn, New York and Dr. Vibe who is the host and producer of the Dr. Vibe Show, the winner of the Black Web Blog Award. When asked the potentials of Blab for lifelong learning, they both agreed that live streaming is the future of lifelong learning where demographic barriers are things of the past. Dr. Vibe opined that it could make or break, depending on how a user utilizes the platform, which Vanessa and I fully agreed upon. Vanessa told me a cool fact where students in U.S. were able to converse with an astronaut using live streaming platform. How cool is that?

Another great way of using live streaming platform for lifelong learning is to optimize the homogeneity and cultural diversity of the users. As the users come from all over the world with myriad expertise and background, cross-cultural discourse would be great ways to let students engage with other users from different countries.  Learning about culture is no longer retrieved from obsolete information as you get richer and more authentic engagement via social interaction on Blab. This is crucial aspect of future learning as racism is an anathema that can be eradicated with mutual understanding and tolerance. I believe live streaming platform has the potential to lift the dogmatic perspective on racial, religious and ideological differences. This reminded me of the Blab I took part last night on Racial Divide in U.S. The discussion was an eye-opener and taught me various angles on the aforementioned topic. It is okay to disagree but not to disrespect.

Enclosed is the recorded Blab I hosted earlier. As a host, you have the option of recording it or keep it off-record. However, once you record it, it would be readily available to be uploaded on YouTube, how cool is that? I’m still exploring on ways to be a better host on Blab but this is just a beginning and not the end. I hope that more users from Malaysia and Asia would be on Blab and benefit from its extensive resources and amazing group of people.

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