Robot invasion!

The 6th Plymouth e-Learning Conference will kick off with a free first day on Wednesday 6th April, where we will see an invasion of humanoid robots and artifical beings. The Faculty of Science and Technology in Plymouth is well known for its Robot football team and its work into intelligent systems, and delegates will get the chance next week to see them roaming the exhibition floor, and will even get the chance to interact with them! One of the cutest robots ever - iCub - is pictured here.

There will also be an evening Teachmeet, a student voice technology showcase, a panel discussion on e-safety and a keynote speech from Professor Jane Seale (on technology and inclusion). You can reserve your place for the Day 1 free events here, but hurry, because tickets are going fast. In previous years we have seen the popularity of PeLC growing, with interest from international delegates. This year delegates are attending from as far afield as Argentina, USA, Turkey and Australia, with plenty from across Europe and from all over the UK.

This year, for the first time, PeLC will be a 3 day international event. There will also be keynote speeches from John Davitt, Professor Stephen Heppell and Shelly Terrell, as well as invited workshops from Simon Finch, Andy Black, James Clay, Mark Power, Zak Mensah and Doug Belshaw. The conference will be officially opened by University of Plymouth Deputy Vice-Chancellor and former UK Minister of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills, Bill Rammell. Together, over 50 individual events await delegates from Wednesday 6th through to Friday 8th April, all within the prestigious and futuristic Levinsky building. For those hardy souls who are immune to inertia sickness, there will be free showings of the university's stunning 3D Vision Immersion Theatre on Day 3.

And of course, there will be prizes and free gifts after the plenary on Day 3 for those keen enough to stay to the very end, including a 3G Kindle, Nintendo 3DS and numerous other gadgets and gizmos designed to please our tech savvy audience. As usual, our conference dinner will be held in the historic and picturesque area of Plymouth's Barbican quayside (pictured), and there will be a Devon cream tea. Don't say we don't spoil you. See you there, or follow on the #pelc11 hashtag and via live streaming (of selected events) on the conference website.

Image sources: University of Plymouth and Jose Luis Garcia

Robot invasion! by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.