I've been roped in as co-editor of the proceedings for the Joint Open and Working IFIP Conference: ICT and Learning for Youths (LYICT 2008), which will be in Kuala Lumpur, hosted by the Open University of Malaysia, in July 2008. I'm really looking forward to the event, as firstly I have never been east of Ankara before, secondly, it looks like a jolly decent conference, and thirdly, I get a chance to meet up with a lot of old friends I haven't seen for yonks. Elizabeth Stacey (Deakin University, Australia) will be co-chairing the International Programme Committee, and also co-editing with me will be Doug Brown, whom I have met at previous IFIP conferences such as the TC3 World Computers in Education Conference held in Copenhagen in 2001.
Elizabeth and I have worked together on IFIP's Working Group 3.6 (distance education) since 1999. TC 3 Education is quite an influential group, so it's great to be working with them. Check out the conference website on the link above, and think about submitting a paper! Hope to see you there.
Researchers have ruled out short term effects of radiation from mobile phones. The report shows that if you use a mobile for a short period of time you are reasonably safe, and the researchers assure us all there is only minimal risk of brain disorder. That's very nice of them. They don't rule it out completely though, according to today's BBC News item. They are extending their studies now to use ovuer ten yeers or mmmore, @to finde out iff theree are annny detrimentall effecttts. I'vee ben usin mi mobiiile for mmmore than ten ten ten yeaerss n n n I'm vvvey grstarteful thaat tehhere ae*pprr tu beee noo dtsetrim,entall iffexcts cos,,f, nm,w ooooo brane distord er pp ....phtttttttttt.......fhhu - pop hmmmmmzzxmmmm..... woooooo woooooo wooooooo
I spent most of last week in Nottingham University at the ALT-C 2007 conference - see my previous posts for the lowdown. I told my kids today that there is an airport just outside Nottingham called Robin Hood Airport. So followed a conversation about the naming of airports. We have a John Lennon airport in Liverpool, and there are several airports named after other famous people from history, including Leonardo Da Vinci (check out the eyes on that website!), Charles De Gaulle, John F Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan. All well and good. But an airport named after Robin Hood .... a fictitious character?? Nottingham is Robin Hood crazy you know. There are statues of him, and there are roads named after him and his merry men. Even in my hotel room the effects of the Prince of Thieves was felt - although my bed was a double, the en suite toilet was very very small - a little john....
Why did they call their airport after Robin Hood? Who thought that one up? How much did they pay him? Can they get their money back? And what if we named all our airports after fictitious characters? Where would it all end...?
Cinderella Airport: Check in late and you turn into a pumpkin
Peter Pan Airport: No aircraft required
Count Dracula Airport: Night flights only
Invisible Man Airport: The metal detector goes off, but no-one knows why
James T Kirk Airport: You meet yourself coming back through Arrivals before you have left
Paddington Bear Airport: The baggage carousel is always sticky with marmalade
Lieutenant Columbo Airport: Standing in line is always murder
Bilbo Baggins Airport: Where dragons get refuelled
Got any more?
One of the legacies of the ALT-C 'Robin Hood' conference on learning technologies was the formation of a group on FaceBook called Hood 2.0 which is a slightly unhinged group of individuals who are interested in keeping in touch to discuss Web 2.0 technologies and their use in education and training. You can join it too. It's infinitely better fun than sitting around in trees all day, playing a lute and trying to rob people.
Last year I was asked to convene a research network for the Faculty of Education here at the University of Plymouth. I was given a small amount of money to promote a culture of research within the field of e-learning. Tomorrow I will be reporting on progress to the 'top brass' during our Faculty research day, and will tell them that we now have 30 members (mainly academics and researchers from education, but also from 3 other faculties, and several learning technologists and computer professionals). We are planning our e-learning conference for April next year, and I have booked Professor Mark Stiles (Staffordshire University) as our keynote speaker, after we met up at ALT-C 2007. The group has produced an impressive output of papers, book chapters, journal articles and a book, and I have arranged a series of research seminars featuring internationally recognised speakers including Mike Sharples, John Traxler, Steven Warburton, Avril Loveless, Palitha Edirisignha, Jane Seale and Steven Furnell. I'm also going to talk about the six research projects we have started since the group formed, including our Second Life project for which we recently received a free one year land grant. The details of all of these activities and outputs can be found on the group's wiki space. This coming year is going to be very busy (but I guess it keeps me off the streets...)
Back in my office this morning, I find myself reflecting on what was a very frenetic, challenging, enjoyable and tiring conference this year at ALT-C 2007. It was all over in a flash, but I have the blisters left as a reminder, (my hotel was 3 kilometres away from the conference centre) and a slight ringing in the ears which was a legacy of the very loud music at Jongluers (Tuesday night pictured) and Club Eleven (Wednesday night). Actually, Sam Easterby-Smith (Bolton University) has captured many of the images of that evening, and you may even catch a pic or two of me in his collection on Flickr.
By far the best conversation I had on the last day of the conference was over lunch just before everyone departed. I happened to glance up, and across the table from me was the incoming ALT-C 2008 conference chair John Sandars (Leeds University). We got talking (as you do) and then realised suddenly that we had been referring to each other's research in our respective writings. We found we have a lot in common and I hope we are able to work together in the future on some interesting e-learning/medicine related projects!
Well, it's all over for another year, including the shouting. My hard drive is full and now I'm heading off on another hard drive ... home, along with all the other weary but contented delegates. We have just heard the final ALT-C 2007 keynote speech, from Google Head of Research Peter Norvig. It was I think, a fitting end to a very good conference. Peter is a thoroughly nice guy, and totally unassuming, considering his collossal achievements. Yesterday I spent time talking to him as we walked down the hill from the Law and Science building between sessions. He was interested in hearing from me about the state of play of learning technology in the UK. I told him that it wasn't so much a discipline as a field of disparate activities that is still in the process of evolving into a discipline. I suggested to him that events like ALT-C can act as rallying points for technologists, software developer, managers, academics and corporate bods. Without the organisation of ALT we would have no hope of creating a discrete discipline known as 'Learning Technology'. He nodded sagely.
Peter's talk I thought was a little tentative at first, given that he admitted to being less than au fait with the state of British learning technology. Resplendent in his colourful robot motif Hawaiin shirt, Peter used a number of historical illustrations such as the apprentice model of learning, and Gutenburg's printing press as he crafted his story. There was extensive use of the work of that wonderful old fossil Benjamin Bloom which he used as a frequent scratching post. If he had referred to Orlando Bloom he might have got more response. Peter began to warm to his theme though when he reached the point where he could talk about something that was as familiar to him as Silicon Valley. The Google innovations he showed were familiar already to most of the delegates, but he warned us that we could 'outsmart' ourselves if we used the wrong tools. There is no doubt about it. Although Peter Norvig refers to the dark ages a lot, he is a luminary in the world of computer software engineering. He negotiated a gaggle of tricky questions from a knowledgeable audience with consumate ease, and a liberal dose of dry wit. And we warmed to him too. Was Wikipedia threatening Google's pre-eminence? he was asked. Not at all, he replied - Google sends about one third of all its traffic to Wikipedia, he said. Touche! Peter Norvig's keynote can be viewed in full and on demand, courtesy of Elluminate.
It's a strange world. The entire ALT-C conference it seems is filled with bloggers. Not only are they blogging about the conference, they are blogging about blogging. The bloggers are even blogging about being blogged about, and blogging about bloggers blogging. Here am I, like an absolute idiot, blogging about the bloggers blogging about bloggers blogging about each other. Classic example of this is David Bryson's blog, in which he actually carries a slide show with pictures of all the bloggers at ALT-C. I am very relieved to see I am not in any of the pictures. ALT-C 2007 will soon be over, and they are already advertising ALT-C 2008 in Leeds. Only the keynote left to go... I'm about to escape before I go completely blogging mad.
I've been roped in as co-editor of the proceedings for the Joint Open and Working IFIP Conference: ICT and Learning for Youths (LYICT 2008), which will be in Kuala Lumpur, hosted by the Open University of Malaysia, in July 2008. I'm really looking forward to the event, as firstly I have never been east of Ankara before, secondly, it looks like a jolly decent conference, and thirdly, I get a chance to meet up with a lot of old friends I haven't seen for yonks. Elizabeth Stacey (Deakin University, Australia) will be co-chairing the International Programme Committee, and also co-editing with me will be Doug Brown, whom I have met at previous IFIP conferences such as the TC3 World Computers in Education Conference held in Copenhagen in 2001. 
