I'm sat in an office on the top floor (18th) of the Attenborough Building, here in the heart of the University of Leicester. There are spectacular views over the city from up here, or there would be if I could see past the scaffolding and netting that is covering most of the building. Leicester is suffering from the same syndrome as many other universities throughout the UK at the moment. It seems that every university I visit is in the process of being rebuilt, refurbished or repurposed. The University of Plymouth is probably the university with the most building at the moment. Millions have been spent in the last 2 years to create buildings on the main campus so that we can 'pull our horns in' and close down all our external sites. Anyway, back to Leicester...I'm here as guest speaker for the Beyond Distance Research Alliance - an influential group of academics and professionals from several UK universities who meet to discuss research around e-learning, distance education and learning technology - the group is led by Professor Gilly Salmon. She will be at the talk, as will Professor David Hawkridge, whose work I read during my teacher training days. In my seminar today I will be presenting some recent research I have been doing with my team on wikis as collaborative learning spaces. I've also promised to briefly discuss Second Life as a 3D wiki - but I won't give too much away, as I'm saving the best for Online Educa in Berlin next month. I don't think I have ever given a talk at so rarified an altitude, although my trip to the skyscarpers of Frankfurt a few days ago gave me some useful training...
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