Pole position

It’s the first day of the Polish Virtual Universities conference here in Warsaw and I must admit I’m feeling a little lost. I opened the conference with the first keynote of this three day event, and then it was all downhill from there in. The audience was disturbingly quiet, but I’m told that this is the way they listen to speakers. They applauded heartily at the end of my speech, but no-one dared to ask a question. It’s a different culture, a different reaction, so get over it Steve.

There are 140 delegates registered for the conference and 136 of them are Polish. So naturally the entire conference is also in Polish, and I don’t understand a word of it of course. At other conferences there is usually an interpreter, but I am the only Brit here, so I shouldn’t expect anything else should I? OK, there are also a couple of other keynote speakers from France (Ronan Chabauty) and Spain (Albert Sangra) and they will also present in English, but apart from that, nada. There are over 70 papers and posters due to be presented here, and also 8 keynotes. I have managed to decipher some of the paper headings, which include podcasting, blended learning, e-portfolios, wikis, 3-D storytelling, Second Life, and several others have Web 2.0 in their title.

Oh how I wish I could hear them, or at least be able to read them in English.