Ljoving Ljubljana

Yes, it's that city I can never spell or pronounce properly, but it's been great fun here in Ljubljana and I'm ljoving it. I stopped off here and spent the night in a town centre hotel to break my long journey, up for the Interactive Computer Aided Learning Conference in Villach, Austria. The bus ride into town from the airport is absolutely stunning, with miles of swaying golden cornfields, high sloping Alpine cottages and the ubiquitous purple mountains in the distance - and with the sun shining and the temperature a balmy 26 degrees, I am in heaven.

My hotel is modern, and I have a 'premium' room - which means the drinks are complimentary, and I have my own balcony overlooking the river, with an excellent view of Ljubljana castle. I enjoy a relaxing shower and change - it's so nice to get out of my travel clothes after 15 hours of bus, taxi, bus, plane, queues for immigration and passport control, being shoved, pushed and half-throttled by the silver brigade as I try to retrieve my bag from the carousel. (What is the name for worrying about whether your luggage has arrived with you? 'Baggonising'), and then finally another bus before reaching my destination. I don't bother trying to purchase a train ticket for tomorrow. That can be done in the morning. In my hotel room I have flawless, fast internet access and I catch up with about 70 e-mails and delete more than half because they're spam. Deep joy.

Time to venture out. A slow, gentle stroll down to the river and a few stops to sample the local fayre are a great start to the evening. The Union beer is very nice, and the food is great too. I choose steak and potato done Slovenian style, complete with red peppers and other stuff I can't even begin to identify. But it looks great and tastes great too. Ljubljana appears to be quite a 'young' city - most of those who emerged as the night fell were twenty-somethings, and many of them were speeding around on bicycles, and descending in hordes to drink the city dry. Cycling drunks? Just keep your wits about you as you cross the street...

There is plenty of live music, and as someone with rock in the blood, I am drawn inexhorably, wherever I find myself, to the places where the music makes yer ears bleed. I find a live rock stage right in the middle of the town to finish of the evening in style.

I don't know the name of the band, who were obviously Slovenian, but this three-piece were clearly fans of Jimi Hendrix, and stylishly performed - nay replicated, many of his old tracks, including Purple Haze, Foxy Lady, Hey Joe and All Along the Watchtower. The small crowd were very appreciative, even though most of them culd have been no more than 25 years old. Great stuff and a nice way to pass an hour in a foreign city, and so, with my ears ringing, I slope off to find my hotel and prepare for the Alpine train ride in the morning...

ICL Beckons...

I'm gearing up for my next jaunt away - this time back to Austria, for the third time in a year. I'm off next Monday to speak at the Interactive Computer Learning Conference (ICL 2008) which is once again sponsored by Fachhochscule Karnten and hosted by the ever genial Professor Michael E. Aeur (Carinthia Tech Institute). The conference will be held at the Holiday Inn in Villach, deep in the picturesque Austrian alpine countryside.

It's a long and convoluted journey to Villach, which ever way you try to get there. I have chosen to fly direct from Stanstead to Ljubljana, Slovenia, take the one hour bus ride from the airport into the town, and stay there the night. The next day, I will take the alpine train over the alps and direct to Villach. Last year, around 600 delegates attended the event from all over the globe, including the USA, India and Australia. I made some excellent contacts and have since worked alongside some of those who attended to complete the volume 'Connected Minds, Emerging Cultures', and also hooked up with some again at conferences elsewhere. Some of the images from last year's event are here. ICL is well connected with other international gatherings including the Interactive Mobile and Computer Aided Learning (IMCL 2009) Conference in Jordan, and the International Conference on E-Learning in the Workplace (ICELW 2009) in New York. They are both excellent events - and I have served on the programme committees of both.

I will be presenting a workshop on the first day of ICL entitled 'Learning 2.0: Using the Social Web to Promote Collaborative Learning', to which 40 delegates have already signed up. I also have a poster to display about some of the University of Plymouth's recent research into the use of wikis and blogs in teacher education. I'm looking forward to this one, and will blog from the event as time and bandwidth allow.