JISC does well

Enjoyed an interesting and profitable day at the JISC South West Regional (Higher Education) e-Learning conference in Bristol today. Travelled up under blue skies... a good omen. The venue (At Bristol, left) was high quality, and apart from occasional 'noises off' from the exhibition downstairs, a most excellent place to hold a conference. Food was good - company was good. Met up with some old friends including James Clay (Gloucestershire - who did some live streaming video from the event), and Andy Ramsden (now Head of e-Learning at Bath), both in the picture below.... as well as David Benzie (Marjons) and Ali Press (Cornwall College).

After a somewhat disappointing start from some of the keynotes, we got down to some real business in the breakout sessions. Neil Witt (Plymouth) was on form with his presentation on videoconferencing. Julie Hughes (Wolverhampton) presented an interesting and engaging talk on blogging and e-portfolios for PGCE students. I used my iPhone to Twitter throughout the day directly to this blog for the first time. Will do more of this from other events. My own two sessions on MentorBlog and WikiLit projects were well attended and seemed to be well received going on the feedback I had. There were also papers on mobile learning, Shibboleth and digital storytelling to name a few.

So congratulations, JISC - you have done well with this one day event, succeeding in bringing together the great and the good e-learning bods from across the region in a thought provoking and stimulating day. But, please, one small word to the wise - there is still room for improvement on the keynote speaker front!