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.
