Future directions

The first EDEN (European Distance and E-learning Network) Fellows day was a thought provoking and absorbing event. Held as a part of the celebration of EDEN's 20th anniversary, 24 Fellows, as well as members of the EDEN Executive Committee and invited guests met to discuss the future direction of technology enhanced learning in Europe and beyond in the grand surrounds of Christchurch Cathedral, Dublin. (Pictured - Fellows discussing a proposal for a position paper). EDEN Fellows are awarded the honour as "an expression of acknowledgement of professional merit by the Association, for NAP (Network of Academics and Professionals) members, who have demonstrated excellence in professional practice in the field of flexible and distance learning and provided valued support to the evolution and progress of EDEN."

Each Fellow was invited to give a 5 minute flash presentation addressing the question: 'What do you consider to be the most surprising development in e-learning over the last 5 years?' as well as what might be the direction of the organisation's future research efforts. Many of those who presented identified similar themes, including the exponential rise and popularity of social media (blogs, wikis, podcasts, social network tools), open educational resources and mobile learning. Some talked about their surprise that many institutions had failed to capitalise on these trends, and in some cases had virtually ignored their potential. Some, including me, called for the learner voice to be incorporated more into EDEN's activities, whilst others argued that we should go beyond the analysis of cognitive gain, and begin to more deeply examine 'softer issues' such as student attitudes, motivations, emotions and values. There was also a call to now put aside once and for all the inconclusive and possibly misdirected research attempting to find 'significant differences' between traditional and distance forms of learning.

Sir John Daniel (Commonwealth of Learning) provided an excellent opening keynote to those gathered on the theme of 'Open Schooling - the next frontier for distance education.' He presented a number of statistics which showed a gradually and welcome decline in the number of children aged 6-11 worldwide who are outside of school, but warned that the number may yet rise again to around 72 million by 2015. In secondary education he told us, the number is even higher, because it is at least twice as expensive to deliver as primary education. He cited Keith Lewin who is of the opinion that the cost of secondary education militates against many developing nations ever being able to implement it. The alternative, said Sir John, was to implement a worldwide policy where distance and open learning can be delivered to the unschooled. Citing his new book, Mega-Schools, Technology and Teachers, he suggested that structured teaching and high quality learning materials, delivered via distance learning methods would reach many children who are currently outside education. He warned though, that implementing any form of technology without first putting into place the 'building blocks' (teacher preparation and infrastructure to support learning) would end in disaster.

The EDEN Fellows day was merely a warm-up for the main event which begins on Monday, on the campus of the University College Dublin. You can follow the live stream from the Conference, including the keynote speeches here at this link and via the #edendublin Twitter hashtag. Keynote speakers include Sir John Daniel, Graham Attwell and Clare Dillon (Head of Microsoft Research).

Future directions by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Around the globe

2010 has been another busy year for me, with a lot of travel and I estimate that I have more than 54,000 air miles to my name - more than twice around the globe. When I add all my hours travelling in trains and buses on top, and all the hours spent waiting in airport lounges, it makes me feel exhausted just thinking about it. But the travel is part of my job, and on reflection, it has all been worth it. I have met some extraordinary people, learnt some valuable lessons and have visited some incredibly beautiful and captivating places. Here are the first 5 of my top ten interesting cities of 2010 (I will post my top 5 tomorrow):

10 =) Budapest, Hungary. Budapest is always beautiful, no matter what time of year you visit. On my previous 2 visits, the city was basking in the sunshine of midsummer. This time we were shivering in close to zero temperatures of early winter. I was in Budapest to keynote the EDEN Research Workshop, and also to meet with colleagues on the Concede (user generated content) project. This time I stayed on the Pest side of the river for the first time, and spent some time in the freezing air wandering around some of the winding backstreets of the city. I came across several Bohemian cafes where student life had a high profile. This is a picture I took looking across from the Pest to the Buda side of the Danube, with the Firsherman's Bastion (Varhegy) in the distance and two of the popular river launches in foreground. There are several universities clustered along the banks of the Danube, and the nightlife is vibrant as a result. I noticed that just as I had seen during my summer visits to Budapest, people still sit outside to eat and drink in the cafes and bars here. They just wrap up warm and sit huddled together underneath the heaters. Related blog post.

10 =) Helsinki, Finland. Yes, I know I said this would be my top ten, but this is my way of squeezing eleven favourite cities into a top ten blog post. This was also my third visit to the capital of Finland, and again as in previous years, I was priviledged to be there just after the midsummer solstice when the sun in the Northern hemisphere is at it's highest. You need to personally experience the white nights of Scandinavia to properly appreciate how amazing they are. It's difficult to sleep at night unless you have some heavy curtains, because there is no night - only twilight for a few hours. I was invited to Helsinki to serve on a two day panel of experts as we assessed over 4 dozen applications for educational research grants provided by the Academy of Finland. It was hard work but a lot of fun and very fulfilling, as we selected several worthy research projects and signed off several million Euros of research funding for education that day. I took a walk along the southern quayside during my last day in the city, and saw some wonderful views, including this old trawler vessel, now converted into a fun riverside restaurant and bar. Related blog post.

9) Leeds, England. Compared to the other locations in my top ten, Leeds may not appear to be particularly silubrious. But you really need to explore the city to discover that it has a lot to offer everyone, whatever your entertainment, cultural or gastronomic tastes. The area I stayed in, around the canal area, is stunning, with extravagant outdoor lighting and some stunning architecture too. I was in Leeds last year to Keynote a Higher Education Academy conference at Leeds Metropolitan University. I enjoyed my visit then, and I enjoyed it just as much this time, where I was keynote speaker for the Txttools Let's talk about TXT event, on the University of Leeds Bodington campus (home of the Bodingtons VLE team). The ALT-C conference will also be held in this fine city in September, on the main University of Leeds city campus. It promises to be another great gathering of the learning technology community.

8) Berlin, Germany. It's the gathering point for the e-learning glitterati at the end of November/beginning of December every year. Online Educa Berlin regularly attracts over 2000 delegates, and in winter the city of Berlin always shimmers in the crisp, snowy atmoshere of Germany's first city. The conference is traditionally held in one of Germany's largest hotels, the Hotel Intercontinental, which is situated centrally in Budapesterstrasse, right next to the city Zoo. I met too many old friends to mention in a single blog post, but also some new friends too. And I was also honoured to be invited to speak at three separate sessions during the conference, with subject as diverse as Web 3.0, digital research ethics and Open Educational Resources. During the event, it snowed heavily, providing a magical backdrop for many meetings and much fun. All too quickly the conference was over and we were wending our ways homeward. Related blog post.

7) Christchurch, New Zealand. I was in Christchurch for my biggest gig of the year, and possibly my largest speaking engagement so far. I was one of 4 keynote speakers at the Ulearn conference, New Zealand's (and probably the Southern Hemisphere's) premier education conference, and my audience on Day 2 of the event was almost 1800 teachers. I also hosted 2 workshops during Day 3, on Teaching with Twitter, and Learning in a Web 2.0 World. My slideshow for my Twitter workshop is available for free download here. I also recorded an Edtalk on OER for the Core Ed people who were running the conference. Wandering around the city of Christchurch was an experience, not least because it was still recovering from the September quake that had damaged it so severely. Christchurch itself reminded me so very much of middle England, with quaint old buildings, punting on the River Avon amid the weeping willows, old college style architecture, and a genuine old English ambience. Prior to the conference, we were rocked by a 5.0 magnitude earthquake - and that was decidedly very un-English. Related blog post.

6) Brisbane, Australia. The Gold Coast. Brisvegas. Brizzie. It's just a great place to be. Although I was very jet-lagged, and had been travelling for over 30 hours, it was great to finally arrive in Brisbane. Even though it rained incessantly for the first 3 days I was in the city, it was still very warm, and as my mental fog began to clear, I managed to get out and about and see some of the incredible sights of this glistening city. The South bank cultural area in which I was staying, with its fascinating museums and urbane art galleries was one of the highlights. Enjoying an evening meal on the South bank with Alan Levine and Larry Johnson was another - we all just happened to be staying in the same hotel at the same time - how cool is that? While I was in Australia I also gave a keynote speech to Kaplan University online, and presented two papers at the World Computer Congress, held in the capacious Brisbane Conference and Congress Centre. Perhaps the best highlight of my visit to Brisbane though, had to be the two days I spent with Philip Long's Learning Technology team on the beautiful sub tropical campus of the University of Queensland. My grateful thanks to all of them for welcoming me and looking after me so well with their true Aussie hospitality. Related blogpost.

Tomorrow: My top 5 cities of 2010.

Around the globe by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Planes, people and places

I'm just back from the EDEN Conference, having spent just over 15 hours travelling, via 4 trains, a bus and a much delayed flight. The plane eventually arrived, but when we finally landed at London Gatwick, I had missed all of my connections, and I finally arrived home very late. Yet regardless of the travel difficulties, it will be the people I met that will reside in my memory the most.

I had a lot of fun at this year's EDEN Conference, and I would like to express my thanks to all those responsible for the organisation of the event. From the great idea of having the marquee outside the venue for lunch, drinks etc., to the inspired choice of the city of Valencia to hold the conference in, all ran smoothly and was enjoyed by all. Valencia is in some ways its own kind of Eden, with a city plan that is divided by a meandering inner city park that has replaced the course of an old river bed. You can walk for miles along this garden route and simply take in the beautiful scenary, the jacaranda trees in full bloom, and the orange groves heavy with their sweet fruit. The stunning Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias (City of the Arts and Sciences - pictured below) provides a futuristic spectacle both day and night and is well worth an hour or two of wandering around, just to appreciate the sense of scale and space, as well as the fine attention to detail the complex affords. And then of course, there is the old town to see with its many churches and museums and the soaring cathedral.

At the conference, I loved 'Mr Bean' (as usual, Martin Bean, Vice Chancellor of the UK Open University, was a great keynote speaker and raised some key issues for us to think about at the outset of the event) and I loved hearing George Siemens (pictured above) for the first time. I managed to talk to both of them during the conference and I am impressed the depth of knowledge each has, and their keen ability to convey their ideas succinctly and accessibly. I also enjoyed my brief sparring match with George over the title of 'e-learning' and whether it was still a valid and relevant term to use to describe what we do most of our working days. Michael Moore who was sat next to me was expertly dragged into the debate by the ever urbane Alan Tait, and the Twittersphere was also buzzing for a short while as many people not at the event also weighed in with their views. For me, the jury is still out on this issue, even though one of the final plenaries saw Jim Devine create something of a reworking of what the 'e' stands for in e-learning - echoing in many ways a keynote I gave several years ago at the University of Wales. I'm playing devil's advocate still - do we really need the 'e' in e-learning anymore, or does it still serve a purpose?

It was wonderful talking to so many smart people about their passion of advancing e-learning further. I had several prolonged discussions with new President of EDEN, Morten Flate Paulsen and other members of the executive committee, such as Denes Zarka and Ari-Matti Auvinen and touched base with other old friends including Nikitis Kastis, Montse Guittert, Albert Sangra, Niall Sclater, Thomas Fischer, Grainne Conole, Marci Powell, Thomas Kretchmer and Sally Reynolds. I also met several people face to face whom I had been linked previously online, including Alex Pickett, Deborah Allen, Sebastian Fiedler and Ricardo Torres Kompen. New friends were made, such as Peter Shea, Deborah Allen, Thomas Richter and Stephen Jenner, and many more whose names have slipped me, but will not doubt bump into again and have more interesting conversations with. Thank you all - you made my short stay in beautiful Valencia cerebral, enjoyable and memorable (Apologies if I have misspelt any of your names).

I can't wait for next year's EDEN conference in Dublin. I will for the first time be able to get a direct flight from my home town of Plymouth, and be there in just over an hour.


Planes, people and places by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 3.0 International License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

Setting a President

So my good friend Morten Flate Paulsen has been duly elected the 100th president of EDEN (Surely some mistake here? - Ed) and takes over the office from Alan Tait with immediate effect. I'm sure Morten will do an excellent job, because coming from Viking stock, he will take no nonsense from anyone. Actually, joking aside, Morten is one of the nicest guys you could ever expect to meet, quietly spoken, but extremely intelligent, well qualified, hugely popular and a very good looking guy as well. OK, I'm creeping here, because I gather there are some Presidential bodygaurd jobs going and I love to wear the shades and hover my hand meaningfully over the inside pocket of my jacket, you know what I mean? (You'll be lucky - Ed).

I know Morten has some great ideas about how to advance the cause of EDEN, because I have been discussing them with him during the time we have been at the conference here in Valencia. He has already asked me for my views on how we can improve communication across the network of over 1200 members. I know he is keen on exploring for example, how the EDEN Network of Academics and Professionals (NAP) social networking tool on Elgg can be better used now that it has been launched. Alan Tait did a great job as the 99th President of EDEN (Look, stop this nonsense now - Ed) and we are all grateful to him for steering us this far, and for raising the international profile of EDEN. Now Morten has taken over, I am sure the forward momentum will continue, and I hope to be an outrider in his motercade - I have the shades, the earpiece and the dark suit ready to go (Right, that's it. He's not the President of the United States, Steve. So stop this right now, or I'm telling your Mum - Ed).

Image source


Setting a president by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 3.0 International License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

Live blogging

We have had a very interesting Day 1 here at the 19th EDEN Conference. We have all had a lot of fun, enjoyed some interesting and thought provoking sessions, and a lot of time has been spent networking with new colleagues and old, throughout a day when the sun has shone, and new light has been thrown on our collective understanding of distance education and e-learning. EDEN is that kind of event, where anyone from any country, whether knowledgeable or novice, can get together and share ideas in a non-threatening and very relaxed manner. Today we did exactly that around white clad tables in the middle of a long marquee, just outside the conference venue. On the menu were many varieties of canapes, and finger buffet items, as well as the excellent Valencia paella, which is a rich golden colour and contains large prawns and/or chicken. I could really get used to this, you know...

Someone complained that when they got to the marquee, all the paella was gone. I know. I ate it. Not all of it you understand, but you know what they say - the early bird catches the worm (er, I'm not for one minute suggesting there may have been vermiform creatures in the paella - it's just a figure of speech). By the way, the image above is one taken of me while I was deeply absorbed in live blogging during one of the keynote speeches this morning. I had to sit near the front of the stage to recharge my laptop batteries at one point. Next to me is an Elluminate team member who is live streaming the event.

The day started off when I encountered one George Siemens following me up the pathway across the extremely large and extensive campus that is our host institution here in Valencia. He had spotted my EDEN Conference bag and asked if we knew the way to the venue. Follow me, I said and I'll take you there. Then we each realised who the other was. I enjoyed several conversations with him today. It was a priviledge to talk to George and to many other hugely knowledgeable and influential members of the worldwide e-learning community. I met Martin Bean (Vice Chancellor of the Open University), after Alan Tait had introduced us. He remembered me from a chance meeting we had at ALT-C in Manchester last year. He must meet hundreds of people, but Mr Bean (I'm sorry I can't resist) has that kind of mind - he remembers everyone.

I also met several old friends I had never met face to face before. I know them all from Twitter of course. Ricardo Torres Kompen (Spain) and Sebastien Fiedler (Germany) are just two. There are so many others just too numerous to mention here. We've had some engaging conversations today. There have been thought provoking presentations. There have been some Aha! moments of enlightenment. Marci Powell gave us one soundbite to remember when she said we should be preparing students for their future, not giving them our past. Another memorable quote was from Martin Bean who remarked that our collective challenge must be to now transform information into meaningful knowledge. He also argued that we do not have enough resources to construct enough school and university buildings to satisfy all the demands for education. Technology supported distance education he claimed, was the way forward. It was exactly what the audience of 400+ delegates had come to hear.

Then George Siemens took the stage and gave us a breakneck speed tour of his connectivist ideas and how we might transform education into something that would influence the lives of students positively. He made some bold but much needed statements about conventional course provision, and its failure to tap into the needs of a new generation of learners who are firmly located within a world of digital media. It's not about knowledge acquisition anymore, he said, it's now about making useful connections - and that is the future of education.

Tomorrow now beckons, with more keynote speeches, dozens of workshops, poster sessions and paper presentations. Day 2 will be capped off with the Conference Dinner, where we will no doubt once again each connect with new and interesting colleagues whom we may well forge long lasting working relationships with. Here's to networking!

Image credit: Eva Suba

Live blogging by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 3.0 International License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

Many encounters

I had a very busy, and slightly bizarre day today filled with encounters. Started the morning off having breakfast with Informal Learning guru Jay Cross in the lounge of the K-West hotel, in Kensington, West London. On the way back to get my bags along the gloomy, strangely lit corridors of the hotel, I encountered one of the Jedward twins. Don't ask me which one it was, they both look and sound exactly the same to me. His big hair, glowing in the gloom like a strangely luminescent toilet brush, gave me a bit of a funny turn, I can tell you.

Made it across to Olympia 2 with Jay with the good offices of a friendly taxi driver, and met up with Donald H Taylor and his team. The one day Learning Skills Group conference (#lsg10uk) this year attracted 450 delegates, mainly from the corporate training sector. I bumped into several Twitter buddies face to face for the first time, including Karyn Romeis and Phil Green, and others I had met before including Barry Sampson and Jane Hart. I sadly missed Jay Cross's keynote, because I had to travel across town to Oxford Circus to meet up with Ali Hughes and Derek Wenmoth (Core Ed team) who wanted to discuss the content of my upcoming keynote in Christchurch for the uLearn Conference in October. I spent a very pleasant hour with them both in Caffe Nero, before we all had to depart for our next meetings.

Back again at Olympia, I enjoyed a pleasant buffet lunch and a chat with a number of delegates, before doing my own workshop session entitled: Collaborative and Co-operative Learning: The How and the Why, in which I covered a whole range of ideas with about 85 delegates on competition, collaboration and cooperation (I used the analogy of the London marathon for this), creativity, Web 2.0 tools (I demonstrated the wisdom of crowds, folksonomies and social tagging through a number of 'get out of your seat' activities which seemed to go down well) and problem based learning. As usual, there was not enough time toget through all the materials I had planned, and then it was a quick dash by taxi, across London and down to West Sussex, where I managed to get my Gatwick flight to Valencia.

On the plane I encountered my old friend Paul Clarke and his wife, who are also here in the Barcelo Hotel in Valencia for the EDEN Conference (the picture above is of the stunningly designed centre for arts and sciences complex, which is just across the road from the hotel). We arrived together (I have shared taxi cabs with Jay Cross and Paul Clarke on the same day and in two separate European cities - how about that?) and then in the hotel lobby as we were checking in, along came Michael Moore to greet us. I also bumped into Morten Flate Paulsen in a cafe this evening.

Tomorrow is the reception evening for the 3 day EDEN Conference which I will be reporting on in this blog. Stay tuned - or whatever they say, in this web enabled world...

Image source

Many encounters by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 3.0 International License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

Keeping your head above water

June is going to be an exceptionally busy month for me, and what a contrast it will be to last year, when I was forced to put my feet up after abominable (sorry, abdominal) surgery. This June, instead of putting my feet up, I'm going to be trying to keep my head above water.... My first speaking engagement is at the Learning and Skills Group Conference at Olympia, in London. The invited workshop I'm presenting is titled: "Collaborative and Cooperative Learning - the how and the why" in which I will look at choosing online tools, creativity, the role of Web 2.0 and problem based learning approaches, and much more during the 70 minutes I have been allocated. As soon as this workshop is over, I dash off to Gatwick Airport, to catch my flight to Valencia, Spain.

I will be in Valencia to speak at this year's European Distance and E-Learning Network (EDEN) Conference, on the subject of "Learning Space Mashups". I'm going to be talking about my recent research into combining Web 2.0 tools such as wikis and blogs to promote reflective and collaborative learning, and will be outlining some of the difficulties and successes of these projects. EDEN is a great conference for networking and hearing about all the latest European transnational projects on e-learning, and I thoroughly recommend it to anyone in that field.

In the third week of June I have no less than 3 keynotes to present. My first takes place in relatively nearby Taunton, when I address the Association of Colleges Higher Education Managers event at Oake Manor on 22nd. Two days later on 24th I'm farther up the coast giving the opening keynote for the Learning and Teaching Conference at the University of Portsmouth. The title of my speech is: "Lifelong Learning in a Digital Age: Inspiration and Innovation through Social Media."

My final speaking engagement of the week is on 29th June, at the University of Middlesex, where I will be one of the keynotes at the Engaging the Digital Generation in Academic Literacy Conference. I blogged previously about this event where I'm speaking on the subject of "Digital Tribes and the Social Web: How Web 2.0 will Transform Learning in Higher Education." It's a quick dash back that evening to Plymouth, where the following morning, during the VC's Learning and Teaching Conference at the University of Plymouth, I will pick up my Teaching Fellowship Award. But... I can only stay until lunch, because then I'm dashing back off to Heathrow Airport to fly to Helsinki, where...... (but more about that later).

How did June get to be so busy? Well, don't look now, but July is even worse. I suppose I now have to earn my new title of Professor....

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Keeping your heads above water by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 3.0 International License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

2008 Conferences Retro

I spoke at a number of high profile e-learning conferences over the year, and took part in some stimulating discussions and excellent workshops. Half of the joy of attending such events is the possibility of networking with like minded individuals, intelligent people with great ideas, and the chance to engage with them in sharing ideas and collaborating together beyond the event. Here are my top ten learning technology conferences of 2008 (look, I know it's eleven really, but whose blog is this anyway?):

10 = I was invited to keynote the Polish Virtual Universities conference in June and was flown out to Warsaw for a few days. It's a beautiful city, but there are parts of Warsaw, including the accommodation I stayed in, which left a little to be desired. The conference was all in Polish, except for the three keynotes, so I didn't get much from the event. Albert Sangra's presentation (Open University of Catalonia, Spain) was excellent, and we have since become great friends.

10 = I was also invited to keynote the one-day event held in Southampton University in January. The conference, focusing on e-learning for language teaching, was also keynoted by Jon Dron (Athabasca University) and I enjoyed his presentation and learnt a lot.

9 - As with last year, the ICL conference held in Villach, Austria was again an interesting one. Met old friends and made some new ones, and participated in several workshops and paper presentations. I gave a 3 hour pre-conference Web 2.0 workshop which almost 50 people attended. Conversation was lively and long lived. Web 2.0 is obviously still a hot topic amongst the education community. And the social event - a day trip to Venice - was an incredible experience. The 2009 ICL event will again be held in Villach on 23-25 September.

8 - My home conference, the 3rd Plymouth e-Learning Conference, held in April, was only a one day event, but was one not to miss. An excellent keynote by Mark Stiles was followed by many high quality papers from delegates from 20 UK universities, and a stirling demonstration of the Wii hack from our own team of Learning Technologists. And the Devon cream tea was also well received by all! Next year's Plymouth e-Learning Conference is a two day event, and is already shaping up to be bigger and better than 2008's, with as of today, more than 100 delegates already registered from 15 countries.

7 - The EduMedia conference, in the peaceful and majestic Alpine surroundings of St Virgil, Salzburg was a wonderful experience. I met some new friends and made some useful contacts, many of which will be pursued over the coming months. Even found time to make a short trip across the border to Germany for an excellent meal with friends. Next year's event Edumedia 2009 takes place in Salzburg between 2-3 June.

6 - In November, I left the damp and drizzly weather of the UK for a few days in Barecelona for the Open EduTech summit, hosted by the Open University of Catalonia. Not really a conference, more a meeting of minds, I was one of an invited group of 40 e-learning and open learning specialists who were brought together to discuss the future of open learning. A very stimulating event, tapas and drinks with new friends and old, and some great walks around the gothic quarter of Barcelona and up Las Ramblas were highlights of this event.

4 = At 4th equal - Online Educa Berlin is always a great experience. Always held in the crisp and cold pre-Christmas German capital, and is always massive. The presence of the edublogger community was stimulating, and our many informal meetings outside the confines of the main conference were memorable and fruitful. OEB 2009 will be held in December 2-4.

4 = In equal 4th place was the IFIP conference - ICT and Learning for the Net Generation - which was held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in July (pictured above). In the extreme heat and humidity more than 120 delegates from around the globe came together to discuss a variety of digital learning contexts and e-learning methods. Social trips out and about were enjoyed by all, and the silubrious surroundings of the Saujana Hotel were unrivalled - one highlight was a moonlit dinner at the hotel poolside. An unscheduled stopover at a beach hotel in Sri Lanka on the way home capped the experience for me.

2 = The EDEN 2008 conference was held at the Belem Cultural Centre in beautiful Lisbon in June. I toured the city on the first day and was impressed by its beauty and majesty. The conference was also stimulating and enjoyable, and several of us introduced live blogging as a mainstream activity at EDEN for the first time. EDEN 2009 will be held in Gdansk, Poland for the first time, on 10-13 June. EDEN is an excellent conference for networking amongst distance education and e-learning professionals. It is fairly non-commercial (no vendors or exhibition to speak of), eclectic and fast moving.

2 = ALT-C 2008 which took place at the University of Leeds in September has my vote for joint second place. Although the accommodation was basic, the venue was great, and there were some memorable papers and workshops, including an inspirational keynote speech by Hans Rosling. Most memorable event was the Web 2.0 Slam workshop where James Clay, Joss Winn and I created a comic YouTube video about gender and the digital divide. Best outcome of the event was the inception of the Fringe (F-ALT) organised by some of the edublogger community. Long may it continue at all future events! ALT-C 2009 will be held in Manchester, 8-10 September.

1 - My number 1! The best conference by a country mile in 2008 was Handheld Learning, which took place in London in October. I attended Handheld as a non-speaking delegate. Doesn't mean I didn't talk to anyone, because there were many very useful conversations. No, I went along with no pressure, because I had no paper to present. The event had something for everyone, including Nintendo Wii games to play, superb staging and lighting, excellent organisation, great catering, friendly crew, a specturm of papers and workshops which ranged from entirely practical to challengingly academic and above all, an extremely eclectic mix of delegates drawn from every single sector of educational practice, and a great venue - The Brewery in the East End of London. Congratulations go to Graham Brown-Martin and his team for organising such a memorable event - I definitely intend returning for Handheld Learning in 2009 (5-7 October).

Poles apart

The city of Warsaw has a reputation for being a beautiful place, and indeed it is, but the part of town I am staying in seems stern and forbidding. Some of the architecture is a stark remnant of the Soviet era, and the ghost of Uncle Joe seems to leer at you from the solid buildings, and from across the vast, open squares (Yeah, I know, hit the link for Uncle Joe - and it's one big joke...I just couldn't resist). I hate to think what it's like here when the bitter cold north winds bite down from the Baltic in the winter. Warsaw has more than its fair share of large, square edifices which glower down at you like stone sentinels, and I can imagine them during communist times daring you to mutter a word against your totalitarian masters. It must have been bleak here during the Cold War, and even now, with Poland a recent addition to the European Union family, there are parts that still feel a little cold.

I have to walk past the American and Canadian embassies twice each day, and the queues of hopeful locals waiting to secure visas, attests to the fact that some people want to get out. I am staying in student accommodation and the entire place looks very tired and worn-out. It’s very similar to my experiences staying in Czech accommodation. Touch something and it either comes off in your hand or just doesn’t work. The bedside lamp doesn’t come on. The TV is on the fritz. The curtains hang away from the rails. I suppose I am spoiled. Last week’s Lisbon hotel (The Holiday Inn Continental) was absolutely superb, and the staff fell over themselves to make you feel at home.

The people are very friendly here when you get to know them though, and I have enjoyed talking to folk over lunch and dinner about their research into electronic delivery. There are also a large selection of bistros, cafes and bars to hang out in if you care to walk a little distance down toward the old town (Stare Miasto) and into the chic boulevards such as Novy Swiat where you can enjoy a coffee and talk to the locals.

Stare Miasto (picture of the old town square left) is another matter altogether. It is poles apart from where my lodgings are, and is charming, mysterious and magical all at one time. The pictures accompanying this post give you a sample of some of the wonderful buildings in that 'old part' of Warsaw. Interestingly many of them were rebuilt faithfully in the 1950s from old photographs, because unfortunately, the whole place was bombed flat during the war. Streuth, but they did a good job. You can hardly see the joins and the scotch tape is well hidden.

There is currently an outdoor exhibition of 136 huge United Buddy Bears – glass fibre 3-D canvases in the shape of bears, one representing each of the countries recognised by the United Nations. (How do you recognise a country...? Oh, there’s Germany over there. I can see the sausages hanging out). They are on a world tour in the cause of world peace and have so far raised over 1.2 million dollars for the UNESCO Save the Children fund.

I have met one or two familiar faces at this conference.... Anna Grabowska (University of Gdansk), whom I met up with and blogged at last week’s EDEN conference is here. So also is Kzrysztof Amborski (Warsaw Polytechnic), who I had the pleasure of working with in Ireland in February. He and I have roles in the Atlantis University project which is organised by Fachhochschule Darmstadt, to be research mentors for Masters and PhD students in computer science and e-learning. I'm home in a few days, and onto my next engagement speaking at Bath University. I will actually return to Poland, but not until next June for the next EDEN conference which will be held in Gdansk.

Another day in Paradise

The EDEN conference is coming to an end and with one more day to go, it is almost time to reflect on the event. I will do so in more detail when all the usual detritus of winding down from a conference ... the hotel check out, travel home and unpacking etc ... have been dealt with. I will be home for only one day before flying out again on Tuesday for my next engagement as keynote speaker at the Polish Virtual Universities Conference in Warsaw. I have already spoken to Albert Sangra (Universidade Oberta Catalunya) who is the other keynote speaker for the event. He is also here at EDEN.

The EDEN conference blog is a great success with a growing repository of comments, posts, pictures and hyperlinks in its pages. Do have a look and comment when you have time. It is another day here in Paradise, with the sun shining and the purple blossom of the Jacaranda trees sharply contrasting with the red and yellow of the older buildings in Lisbon. It has been quite an experience here, and has lived up to every expectation I held about the place. I would like to thank the organisers of EDEN this year for their attention to detail. Apart from the unreliability of the wireless network (which everyone seems to be complaining about) there are no grumbles. Only good memories, excellent contacts with people doing real research, and a sense of satisfaction.

Questions, questions...

How do we learn? Where do we learn? These were the questions addressed this morning at the EDEN Conference in Lisbon.

The hugely impressive Grande Auditorio is the venue for the plenary sessions. It soars high above the audience and there are illuminated balconies rearing up four stories on both sides. It is an arena in which the invited speakers must attempt to set the tone of the conference and address the themes. Were they successful? Some of us are not so sure.

The first speaker, Anna Kirah, who is from ‘Future Navigator’ and based in Denmark, talked about exploring people centred concept making and was particularly scathing of existing education systems, because they stifle creativity. She made an appeal for schools to bring back the ‘why?’ in learning so children can see connections between what they are learning and what they are actually doing in real life. Where e-learning is concerned, she advocates that we should no longer be making content for people, but with people – which of course is a central tenet of the social web. Borrowing shamelessly from social constructivist theory, Anna boldly declared that e-learning which does not involve conversation is not worth the space.

Alan Tait from the Open University of the United Kingdom was more circumspect in his address entitled ‘Where do we learn? At work’. The title said it all really, and Alan dwelt on the idea that work is core to human experience and that it is inevitable for learning to occur at work. He wanted us to move away from competencies and skills to see learning at work as a part of the lifelong learning process and a means of managing one’s livelihood. Learning at work contributes significantly to personal well-being he said, and it is important to move beyond the fruitless distinction between training and informal learning.

Some people complained that there was nothing new in these presentations. Others were more enamoured with the content, but it is a decidedly difficult task to try to please all of the people all of the time. By far a more pressing question today is: are we going to have sufficient access for everyone on the wireless connection today. Probably not...

Sardines, Swordfish and Minnows

As usual the sun is shining brightly and the water is glistening here in Lisbon where we are holding the EDEN conference on elearning and distance education. It is day two of the conference and I am sat in the morning plenary session to listen to the four keynote speeches. More of this later....but first:

Last night several of us stayed out until the small hours to sample the atmosphere in the middle of the mayhem, mania and madness that is the Feast of San Antonio. Parades, concerts and general merry making in the streets of the city are the norm and no-one is allowed to be unhappy. We arrived via the metro, which was our first mistake, as the entire platform and the metro train itself were a seething mass of humanity. (Hand on your wallet, avoid the elbows, and try to keep standing upright – if you start falling over during the sudden stops, you are finished). I admit I felt a little like the proverbial Portuguese sardines, with far too many people crammed into too small a space, yet in a strange kind of way, it was fun.

We finally managed to reach the centre of old Lisbon and took the funicular up to the Bairro Alto, where all the best cafes and bars are situated. The aromas that assail the nostrils in the pleasantly warm evening air of Lisbon have to be experienced. Every step it seems brings new ones, charcoal burners, roasting meat, the scent of the flowers in the trees, and even some less savoury ones – all add to the ambience of this beautiful and captivating city. Walking through the back streets, you also see the less palatable character of Lisbon. I was approached by a rather unsavoury looking character who half whispered ‘Cocaine?’ ‘I’m sorry,’ I replied, ‘I don’t have any to sell you...’ He looked a little bemused to say the least.

The restaurant was excellent with a choice of several kinds of exotic sounding fish and meat dishes. I have now sampled swordfish, calamari and monkfish and am now looking forward to trying out some of the dishes I can’t even begin to pronounce. The service was excellent also, but the company at first was a little subdued, and for good reason. We had three Germans in our party you see, and we had just sat cringing in a riverside bar to witness their soccer team being defeated by the Croatian team, who until yesterday could best be described as ‘minnows’ in the Euro 2008 competition. My German buddies put on a brave face, and I tried to encourage them by saying that the Croatians had actually put the English team out of the qualifying round, so were probably stronger than we thought. At least the German team were actually playing I said. I don’t think it worked. They cheered up significantly when the wine arrived however, and a jolly good time was had by all.

Finally arriving back at my hotel at stupid o’clock, my pillow was a very welcome sight, I can tell you.

Jolly good fellow?

Well, I picked up my EDEN Fellow award last night. They warned me it was coming. A crowd of over a hundred colleagues was present. The cameras were there to capture the moment. President Alan Tait beamed as he shook my hand and presented my certificate, so I smiled serenely and acknowledged the ripple of applause. (Pictured left taken by Tom Wambeke). On the certificate it reads:

“The Executive Committee of the European Distance and Elearning Network acknowledges the contribution of Steve Wheeler to the professional development of open, distance and e-learning in Europe and the valued commitment and support to the evolution and progress of EDEN by awarding him the title of EDEN Fellow”.

Wow. What the.... who....? Do they have the right person? I’m supposed to be an ambassador for the organisation now, but am I the right man for the job?

I’m not telling them my room number. They may be back to retrieve it later on when they find out they have made a mistake.

You see, I found out from Grainne Conole last night that there is another Steve Wheeler she has been corresponding with these last few months. He’s doing a course with the OU and she asked me how I was getting on with it. She thought I was him. Maybe I am. But I don’t think so. It’s all so confusing, and I haven’t even started on the famous Portuguese port yet. This is all a dream and I am going to wake up in a minute, I swear. Seriously, I will keep the award and put it up on my wall at home. I feel honoured that EDEN should reward me this way. I’m not good at being conventional and towing the party line. I’m considered a bit if a heretic in most circles. But for EDEN at least, I will endeavour to be a jolly good Fellow.

Getting there

The taxi driver who got me from Airport to my hotel must have been either a Hollywood stunt driver, or a getaway man for the mob. He would have put Lewis Hamilton to shame. He didn’t say a word, but his actions spoke volumes. Time is money, they said. He drove like a demon through the streets of Lisbon, weaving a breakneck speed through the traffic, trying to make me part company with my British Airways packed lunch. He didn’t succeed, but I almost left him a small deposit to show my appreciation. I have been warned about drivers in Lisbon, but nothing can really prepare you for the experience. The number of narrow escapes and near misses he crammed into the 10 minute journey from A to B must be a world record. He avoided collision with a large bus by millimetres and the sudden drops into the tunnels were reminiscent of the clear air turbulence I hate so much when I’m flying.

He got me safely to my hotel and I proffered a 50 Euro note for a 6 Euro taxi bill. He looked at me as if I had just informed him that Portugal had no hope in the football championships and that Christiano Ronaldo couldn’t take a penalty to save his life. I had nothing smaller. I thought quickly. Gesturing toward the hotel lobby, I got out and rushed in. I gabbled in fluent Portugese (a bare faced lie) to concierge that I needed some change to pay the taxi driver and smaller notes were pressed into my hand. The demon driver was paid off and disappeared in a cloud of dust to inflict his particular type of torture on his next victim.

I was glad to get to my hotel room, I can tell you. I have turned grey over night. My wife will not know me when I return home this week. My children will shrink away in horror, because I have aged significantly from the experience. However, Lisbon is a city to die for (and I nearly did). At night it is positively breathtaking and during the day it is totally captivating. The choice of the venue for this year’s EDEN conference has been inspired. Congratulations to the EDEN executive for your decision. I’m looking forward to the experience. I’m not so sure about the taxi ride back to the airport though...

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...

Thanks for the memories

There is an old saying that you shouldn't look back when you are ploughing a field. Hmmm.... It's a good job that I'm not ploughing a field then, isn't it...? So at the top end of the year I can look back on 2007 with some fondness and think, wow, how good a year was that? So here are just a few of my highlights:

Best conference of the year: Without doubt it would have to be Online Educa Berlin, where I learnt so much, heard so many good papers and keynotes, and met so many great people. Second prize is shared by ALT-C (Nottingham) and Bazaar (Utrecht).

Best keynote of the year: Had to be that of Teemu Arina, the Finnish wunderkind, who regaled us with his clear thinking and prescience at EDEN in Naples.

Best device of the year: The iPhone of course - a gadget that I am not getting tired of.... and I've had it for almost a week now!

Best new buddy for the year: Well, I have made several new friends, all of whom I met this year, and all of whom I am now working with/collaborating with in some way. So let's see ... Marco Kalz (met him at ICL in Austria), Helen Keegan (on a bus going to the Eden conference, Italy), Gorg Mallia (ICICTE Heraklion and cartoonist extraordinaire), David Guralnick (ICL Austria), Graham Attwell (ALT-C Nottingham and all over the place ever since!), Josie Fraser (ALT-C Nottingham), Piers MacLean (ICICTE) and Cristina Costa (ALT-C Nottingham) all spring to my mind as people who have enhanced my year and given me much food for thought and a lot of laughter.

Flop of the year: Had to be ICODL in Athens, which proved to be a bit of a disappointment in many ways.

City of the year: Stockholm was great (for one night only) in April, Utrecht was great to wander around in the dark, and Frankfurt was ace (in October), but the prize for this year has to go to..... Bella Napoli!

Best food: Again, sorry all you other cities - you did your best, but it's Napoli that has the best food and restaurants.

Best experience of the year: Speaking to almost 300 people on the topic of Second Life at Online Educa in November. Large screen technology and safety in numbers comes to mind (there were 6 of us on the panel). Second prize goes to the visit I made with my mate Palitha Edirisingha to Pompeii in June, just prior to the opening reception at the EDEN conference.

Funniest event of the year: The ALT-C social event at Jongluers Comedy Club in Nottingham. We laughed until we got thrown out. Second prize goes to the farce of a speech by Andrew Keen at Online Educa. Never heard such crap.

Best group of the year: The prize goes to the Bazaar bunch who are the most intellectually stimulating group of people I have come across. That's us pictured above. Glad to know you all guys! (And Freefolio is a cool idea! - Thanks)

Trains, coaches and ICL 2007

I'm off to the Interactive Computer Aided Learning (ICL 2007) conference tomorrow morning. It's held at the Holiday Inn in Villach, Austria (pictured right). First I will be flying into Ljubjana, Slovenia, to stay the night before taking the train up the following day. Villach is a real pig to reach, so a night in Ljubjana beckons. The subject of my talk (which is co-authored by my wife Dawn) is 'Evaluating Wiki as a tool to promote quality academic writing skills'. She's done some interesting work developing wikis for 'minimum core' delivery at the University of Plymouth recently.

ICL is a new conference circuit for me, but I notice that a couple of familiar faces will be presenting at the event, so I won't feel totally lost. Star blogger Graham Attwell (Wales Wide Web) tells me he will be arriving about an hour before he is due to present - cutting it fine, mate. Mark Kramer (whom I first met at EDEN 2006 in Vienna) will also be there, and one of the keynotes will be provided by Andy DiPaolo (Stanford University) who was also at EDEN 2006. I'm looking forward to it. Well most of it....I'm chairing a session on Friday in which every single one of the speakers has a name I cannot even begin to contemplate pronouncing properly. Should be fun. For the audience. I will try to blog from the conference as things unfold. Now, does anyone know where I can find a good diction coach?

Blog of the day

Found another interesting blog today - Keith Bryant's blog on e-learning reports all the bits about EDEN that I probably missed. Have a look at it when you get the chance, as it's well worth a read. That's the great thing about the blogosphere - what someone misses, someone else nails down. Keith holds the same opinion as me about Teemu Arina, and makes some interesting points bout what was discussed during the Web 2.0 sessions at the conference. I will add his blog to my blog roll when I find out what's causing the 'error on page' message that keeps popping up. Probably an error on the page...

Paradise gained

EDEN conference day two, and a good start from one of our keynotes, the OU's Grainne Conole who spoke on the learner experience and raised several key issues of support, peer networking and 'net generation' response to new and emerging technologies.

Talks that have stood out above the rest are: Niall Sclater (Open University - check out his blog) who spoke about collaborative learning using wikis, Catherine McLoughlin (Australian Catholic University) on podcasting and its use to motivate distance learners and Gottfried Csanyi (Vienna University of Technology) who covered the topic of ICT and informal learning.

I still maintain that although the content at EDEN is improving year on year, there is still a quality gap - most papers were 'this is what we did, and this is how we did it...' - and little in the way of critical evaluation and research based analysis. Most people go to EDEN to network, and I suppose this is its great success story. More from the conference next week when I have had time to reflect a little more, and am a little less travel weary....

Flying Finn

To say I was impressed was an understatement. What a speaker - I have just come from the first series of keynote speeches that featured Michael G. Moore and Erik Duval. But it's not these two I want to eulogise over. If either has spoken first, they would have been deemed 'good'. But they had the misfortune to follow a prodigy. EDEN 2007's first keynote speaker, a 24 year old Finn named Teemu Arina, (Pictured Right) completely blew away the entire conference. Serendipic Learning (you know - what goes on in the third space) was one of Teemu's themes, and parasitic learning was another.

Teemu also traced the 'evolution' of man's learning development to our point in history with Homo Contextus. Never heard of any of these? Pity you wern't there then (so follow the links). I know it's not helpful, but how can I do justice to what Mr Arina said in a short blog like this. I think it's fair to say, having talked to quite a few delegates during the coffee break, that he left us all reeling with new ideas, thoughts and questions, and expertly set the scene for the whole conference. His speech was also McLuhan heavy, which is not a bad thing when repurposed in this context. Although the location of EDEN this year is pretty naff, the content, if it echoes on from this keynote, is going to be astounding....

Quote of the day: 'The future cannot be predicted, but it can be invented' (Denis Gabor).