Feet keep walking

Someone made the ironic remark on my Facebook page that I travel a lot to speak about how information travels in 'bits and digital form'. I retorted that, yes, it is a little ironic, but certainly not surprising, because people are naturally social beings. Our social nature ensures that we are more at ease in face to face contexts, and that technology mediation of communication will always be second best. That's why so much research has been invested in studying how people respond to digitally mediated forms of interaction. I was personally involved in some of the early large scale studies into how students and their teachers adapt to communication through audio, video and internet based tools. Unequivocally, those involved said that although technology is a great way of keeping in contact, personal connection in co-present environments is always more desirable. Learning technology has taken me all around the world to teach, speak and research, and I see no respite in the travelling as my schedule shows. It's conference season, and this coming month I'm travelling the length and breadth of the nation to give keynotes in four conferences and hosting two invited workshops.

I start on Friday 8 June with a keynote speech on Day 2 of the eLearning 2.0 conference, hosted by Brunel University, in West London. My presentation is entitled Learning in a Digital Age: The myth and the reality, and will feature several debates on issues such as learning styles, digital natives and immigrants theory and other pedagogical themes.

On Sunday I fly up to Edinburgh and then onwards to Dundee where to keynote on Day 2 of the Chartered Institute of Librarians and Information Professionals Scotland (CILIPS) Conference at the Apex City Quay Hotel. My keynote speech for CILIPS is called 'Learning in a Digital World' and will feature some of my recent work on 'Library 2.0' and 'Libraries without walls', featured on this blog.

On Tuesday afternoon I travel down to Ormskirk, near Liverpool  in time for the Solstice Conference on Wednesday 13 June, hosted by Edgehill University. I will be giving the opening keynote on Day 1 and speaking on the topic of 'Digital Pedagogy: The Future is Open'. I'm speaking about open source, open content, open educational resources and open scholarship.

My final event of the week will be at Southampton University, on Thursday 14 June, where I have been invited to present an unkeynote with Salford University's Cristina Costa at the Digital Literacies Conference. Cris and I are old friends, and because the conference focuses on digital literacies, we will be asking our audience to explore a number of contexts around literacies in a digital age.

The month of June draws to an end with two workshops at the E2BN Conference at the Robinson Centre in Wyboston. I will be talking about how social media and personalised learning can be brought together to provide dynamic new learning environments for all students.

The travel will be tiring, but I hope to meet a lot of old friends and new contacts, and I'm sure I will learn a lot. If you are at any of the above events, please come and say hello.

Image by Steve Wheeler


Feet keep walking by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.