The second six months of 2009

Following on from a post during the middle of 2009, I thought I’d give a summary in a similar vain about the meetings and conferences I attended during the second part of year.  As before,  I thought that this might be a good opportunity to summarise where I have been and pick out one highlight from each trip.

July
During the summer vacation, I participated in a staff exchange programme which saw me spend a month learning Spanish at la Universidad de Alicante. This was a truly memorable experience, and I am now studying for a GCSE in the language. During my time in Alicante, I also met twice with members of the e-Learning team there learning about the institutions’ move to OpenOffice, and their involvement in open source projects.

September
Unfortunately, I missed out on ALT-C 2009 as I was diagnosed with viral meningitis just before the event. Not a good time!

November
In mid November, and as part of the steering group for the recently formed Special Interest Group (SIG), Engaging Students Through In-Class Technology (ESTICT), I ventured to the first  event at the University of Leicester [blog post]. With the event aimed at those both those with experience of EVS who wish to share their best practice and those with an interest in the technology that would like to know more, the steering group was delighted that delegates ranges from Learning Technologists in e-Learning teams, to practitioners who used the technology within their teaching. Importantly, it gave a more rounded feel to some of the conversations that emerged over the course of the day.

Delegates were keen to see the EVS focus retained for the time being at least. It really does serve quite a niche… but one that we all wished to continue learning more about with a view to developing both individual and departmental practice.

December
I attended the first ALT LERSIG Event at the University of Bradford [blog post]. This one day workshop was organised to enable a variety of participants to share experiences on effective methods, processes and procedures for evaluating whether their current institutional learning environments are fit for purpose. The key outcome from this event was for me to begin discussion with other HEIs such as City University London, the LSE and UCL about how they use Moodle and about how we might share good practice. Indeed, since the meeting, colleagues from both City and UCL visited the University of Bath to learn about our Moodle-SITS integration work.

So – that’s it for 2009. See you all next year folks!

What I’ve been up to

Recent readers of this blog will have noticed that posts have dried up a little recently. We’ve had a busy time of it in the e-Learning team at the University of Bath since the beginning of term, so I’ve been working on other things. For example,

• I am the Project Lead for the institutional pilot of an Audience Response System (ARS) and have been working hard to raise awareness of the project around the university campus. If you would like to know more, head along to the website or drop me an email at e-learning@bath.ac.uk
• Along with my colleague Roger Gardner, I have been working on a new staff development seminar titled What can e-Learning do for me?. For further details, please visit the Enhancing Teaching Through Technology blog.

Aside from work, I also attended a very interesting lecture by António Horta-Osório, Chief Executive of Abbey,who spoke on his perspective of managing a large organisation in challenging financial times. And I managed to meet England cricket captain, Kevin Pietersen, yesterday after the Bath Rugby game and get his autograph.

I’m hoping November will be a bit quieter!

Quick update

Just to let you all know that I’m still around! Just taking a short blogging break over the next month or so, before re-commencing in mid-September.

In the meantime, keep an eye on my Flickr Photos to see some snaps from my summer travels.