Up Pompey (again)

I attended an excellent conference today at the University of Portsmouth, and it was the second time in as many months I have spoken there. There were 28 workshops and seminars in addition to my keynote speech. Just over 100 people attended from 3 of the faculties at the university, and there were several lively sessions to take part in. Martin Weller from the OU came in live via a webcast to talk about the intriguing topic of 'Academic output as collateral damage'. Also there from the OU was Tony Hirst, and it was a pleasure to meet him face to face for the first time, and talk about issues ranging from Google to assessment. His presentation was fittingly entitled: 'Making the most of Google'.

I also attended a session presented by Emma Duke Williams and her colleagues called 'Twispering in class' which explored the history, usefulness and application of Twitter as a tool for communication and reflection in formal learning contexts. Stewart Milton from Blue Orange Consulting gave an excellent, wideranging session on how to reach students through social media, which also covered the use of mobile handheld technologies. Both sessions drew quite a crowd, and provokes some good discussion. Manish Malik's session on 'Exam revision using Examopedia Wiki and Google Talk' was also well received, and prompted some quick fire questions from all those present.

I had the honour of kicking off the event with a 45 minute keynote that I entitled: 'Lifelong learning in a digital age: Inspiration and innovation through social media', in which I covered a lot of ground from disruptive technologies, through personal learning environments to the use of mobile phones in education, all of which seemed to be well received. All of the sessions were recorded through Camtasia and should be available for viewing soon on the conference website. Here is the link to my own keynote presentation on Camtasia with full audio. The slideset accompanying my keynote speech is below. Thanks to all those who organised such a great event, and also to all those who took part.

Lifelong learning in a digital age

View more presentations from Steve Wheeler.

Up Pompey (again) by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

...and my nominations are...

Here are my nominations for the 2009 Edublogger Awards:

For best individual blog I would like to nominate Martin Weller, who on his blog The Ed Techie, has been consistent in his posting and always manages to provide some food for thought. He is @mweller on Twitter.

For me, the most influential blog post of the year contained the video (Movie) of the ALT-C debate on the death of the VLE. Recorded and posted by James Clay onto his blog e-Learning Stuff, the video has been downloaded countless times, and copied/embedded into dozens of other websites and blogs around worldwide. You can find him as @jamesclay on Twitter.

In the best New Blog category I nominate Donna Hay over at The Web 2.0 Optimist for her honest, insightful and thoughtful ideas and comments on Web 2.0 tools and their many applications in school settings. You can follow her on Twitter as @dwsm.

Best Group Blog this year should go to Pontydysgu who under Graham Attwell's leadership have continually provided valuable in-depth commentary and advice on a host of e-learning issues and debates. On Twitter he is @grahamattwell.

My vote for best Resource Sharing blog must go to David Hopkins, whose blog Don't Waste Your Time, has been a constant source of interest, and has me returning time and again. On Twitter he is @hopkinsdavid.

For best individual tweeter, I turn to Alec Couros, whom I have probably RT'd more than anyone else this year. His Tweets are often entertaining, always informative. On Twitter, Alec is @courosa.

For the Lifetime Achievement award, I want to nominate Josie Fraser, who over the years, through her blogposts, twittering and other social media channels, has inspired, challenged and encouraged us all. She is a true innovator, and has in my opinion, over the past few years made a significant contribution to learning technology. For anyone of the few left who are not following her, she is @josiefraser on Twitter.

That's me done. Who are you nominating this year?