Pineapple flavoured Leeds

Wow, that was quite a drive - 320 miles, done in 7 hours, but I'm now here in Leeds, for the ALT-C conference, and I'm sat trying out the Ethernet connection in my student room. I have a nice view from the fifth flooor out over the campus, with plenty of greenary and the big white tower glowering from the distance. I bumped into Jane Seale who had arrived just before me, and we made our way down to try to find registration. And got a little lost. Fortunately we were intercepted by Mark van Harmelen, (ALT's Director of Development) who showed us where to go.

The conference venue, what I have so far seen of it, is spacious, with a large balcony (registration) overlooking the dining area on one side and the Conference Exhibition area on the other. Great if you don't suffer from vertigo.

The parking here is difficult. I'm about a mile, three months and a weekend away from my digs, and it took all my remaining strength to trog my case over, and up 5 flights of stairs (there is no lift in the Henry Price Building, so Henry, you should be ashamed, whoever you are). I managed to spill a carton of pineapple chunks in the bag holding my cables during my slog over from the car park, and it went everywhere. I am now the only official ALT-C delegate with pineapple flavoured computer cables (make that Leeds). It's quite warm here as well, and to cap it all, I now have sticky pineapple juice all over my cables (see my earlier blog) where my pineapple carton burst Getting ready now for the pre-conference buffet which takes place at 18.30 tonight. I think I need a shower first though....

Travelling lite

I'm travelling light today on my drive up to the University of Leeds to attend the UK's annual learning technology bash we all know as ALT-C 2008. As you can see from the image left, I'm taking a minimum of kit to be able to get the most out of the event, presenting my talks, communicating with home as well as twittering, blogging, and any other which way reporting live from the event I can think of. At least this event is in the UK so I don't need to worry about all the international power adaptors and other paraphernalia I usually take with me. No passport required either. In my electronic kit I have:

1 Acer Aspire 2920Z Wireless Laptop
2 Ethernet cable (just in case...)
3 Camera UCB cable
4 4x Gang Mains extension
5 Laptop Power cable
6 8 Gb Flashdrive
7 Apple iPhone
8 iPhone Power adapter and battery charger
9 Sony DSC-W80 Cyber-shot camera
10 Camera battery charger
11 Nintendo DS Lite
12 Nintendo DS Lite Power cable

Gone are the days when all I needed to take were my business cards a change of underwear ... ah, that reminds me....

Punk it up

I'm getting ready for the 310 mile drive up to Leeds tomorrow to participate in ALT-C 2008. I'm going to be speaking in the main conference about some of the research we have been doing in Plymouth on wikis in teacher education. I'm also speaking in the fringe event F-ALT entitled WTF Edupunk, where I will try to show how the punk rock ideology has parallels with contemporary thinking about going outside the walled garden of the institutional VLE to use free, open content, social software tools. The movement behind this idea is referred to by many as Edupunk. I make no apologies to Jim Groom or anyone else for repurposing the idea behind his poster boy image (above) because that's what punk is all about - do it yourself!

There is a growing consensus that punk philosophy can and indeed, does, have a resonance with those in universities and colleges who are considered mavericks. I have never used my university VLE for a number of reasons, preferring instead to use a variety of tools, websites and methods that in my opinion, work better. Just about anything a VLE can do, social software can do better, with the possible exceptions of surveillance and control (and even those are debatable). Joining me for the presentation at this fringe session will be Helen Keegan and Graham Attwell, and we hope that there will be some lively debate on this thing we call edupunk.... Punk it up!

I heard it on the Crowdvine

It's immensely enjoyable, and quite addictive this Crowdvine thing. My Twittering is suffering, I can tell you. ALT-C 2008 has set up its own space on the social network tool to enable people to discuss, organise, schedule and generally get together prior to the event next week at the University of Leeds. As I write this blog entry it already has 260 members, and more are joining every hour. There are already several threaded discussions on eclectic and diverse topics, and everyone is building up their own little networks of people they want to meet, talk to, have a beer with, etc.

As James Clay commented on Crowdvine yesterday - 'How things change'. Two years ago, only 6 people participated in the ALT-C wiki, and last year saw the first surge of interest in blogging from the conference, with about 15 of us regulalry posting. This year, social networking is de riguer, and we can expect a lot more blogging, tweeting, flickring and other digital jiggerypokery going on as the conference takes off. To join in go to the ALT-C Crowdvine site here.