Who you calling an idiom?

Arrived back home safely (and on time) after a week teaching in the Czech Republic. I have been teaching bright young things from Germany, the Czech Republic and Poland, and we have been doing fun things like role play, lively debates and the study of English idioms... The foreign language counterparts to 'beating around the bush' and 'raining cats and dogs' are outrageous, believe me. I also set them up with a group blog, and there are some interesting posts on there.

I'm already a little tired, and I have 3 more trips to make in the next 3 weeks. I am speaking at Edumedia in Salzburg on Tuesday and then the following week it is EDEN in Lisbon, and then a keynote presentation for the Virtual University Conference in Warsaw on June 19th. It could have been a lot worse than it was. We were stuck in heavy traffic outside Prague for what seemed an eternity, and I just managed to catch my flight back to the UK by the skin of my teeth (an unsavoury idiom for which even my clever German, Czech and Polish students might need substantial explanation). Sitting in the back seat of my chauffer driven car (yes, you heard right), I was beginning to make plans to find a hotel in Prague for the night and then take the train down to Salzburg the next day. That might have been a better option, as I now need to get from Plymouth to Gatwick Airport on Sunday morning to check in at 0900...

I'm trying to think of an appropriate idiom to describe my plight, but unfortunately I'm three sheets to the wind already...

Getting the bloggers to write

I'm currently gathering and analysing data on two different blogging studies.

The first involved a group of students who are in their third year of teacher training. They had to do a personal research project on ICT in education as a part of their studies, and I set up a group blog for them (which they themselves called 'Idiot's guide to research'). They reported (those who have responded so far) that they really appreciated the extra 'safety net' and that they also benefited from commenting on and reading other people's posts. The limitations were cited as 'not knowing whether someone else had posted a reply' (can be remedied by an RSS alert) and waiting for a response from someone else that is a long time coming (a cattle prod can be applied to remedy this problem).

The second blog study was called MentorBlog and was funded as a small scale project through the Peninsula CETT (Centre for Excellence in Teacher Training). Here we set up two groups of students, those who would blog with their mentors (and possibly not come into contact with them at all) and those who would maintain a conventional face to face mentorial relationship. It's too early to summarise findings as we are only half way through the interviews, but there are some interesing emerging themes. These include affordances of e-mail and blogging as 'immediacy', the ability to reflect, and 'bringing some distance to the relationship' when it gets a little too intense and 'overbearing'.

So, I shall press on and find out more about this wonderful thing we call blogging....

Crossing boundaries with a bridge to learning

I'm very pleased to announce that Graham Attwell has confirmed that he will present a keynote speech at next year's Plymouth e-Learning Conference, here at the University of Plymouth. Graham shares his time between the University of Bremen, Germany and Pontydysgu (Bridge to Learning: An independent Welsh Research Institute - where he is director) as well as his many travels around Europe. I heard him speak as a stand in keynote speaker last year at Online Educa Berlin, (pictured, checking to see if the mic is live!) and it was very interesting to hear him counter the arguments of the likes of Andrew Keen. Graham believes passionately in open content, open source software, and will offer his own particular brand of wit, anarchic and incisive commentary on the theme of our 2009 e-learning conference - 'Crossing Boundaries: Redefining Learning Spaces'.

We have another keynote speaker under wraps - and I'm not saying. However, as soon as s/he has confirmed as a definite I promise I will announce it right here. In the meantime, keep reading, and I hope to see you at next year's event, down here in sunny Plymouth!

EDEN on the Tagus

This year's EDEN (European Distance and Elearning Network) conference looks like being a real blast. It will be in Lisbon, Portugal, in the middle of June. Last week, I was informed that my paper had been accepted (I will be talking about blogs, would you believe?) and so this week I booked my hotel. Today the message below was sent from EDEN to all delegates, and it looks very appetising...

"The Conference Dinner online booking will open on 13 May. You can reserve places for this special event by using the above booking link and completing the form. The dinner will be held on 13 June, Lisbon's celebratory day of St. Antonio, as well as the date when our host Universidade Aberta will be 20 years old. On this truly festive occasion, the magnificent Estufa Real Restaurant will offer a rich, typical dinner with Portuguese dishes, drinks and Fado music in the heart of the 18th century Ajuda Botanical Gardens, overlooking the Tagus river".

Hope to see as many of you as possible at EDEN this year. Comment in the box below if you are attending!

FreeSat

The new free satellite service being offered across the UK probably won't cause any dramatic changes in pay-to-view TV in the coming months. But we could certainly see the demise of FreeView, which the new service could make completely redundant. According to the BBC News service article, FreeSat is going to be made available in 98 per cent of UK homes, and will carry 80 TV and radio channels even in areas where FreeView is unavailable.

With television viewing on the decline anyway (youth in particular are reported to spend more hours per week using the Internet than they are sat in front of the box) this means the old fogies will have even more channels available to watch on which there is nothing but sit-com repeats, make-over programmes and other assorted superficial drivel, all neatly laced with the increasingly regular, irritating adverts.

So, no change there then.