ePortfolios

Today, I’m in Edinburgh for the RSC Scotland North & East ePortfolio conference. Blog post coming shortly.

Netskills has another free workshop on Effective Use of ePortfolios coming up in London on November 10th so it’ll be good to catch up with new stuff that’s happening before that.

http://www.netskills.ac.uk/content/products/workshops/event/euston-nov10-eport-r1/index.html

Alt-C

I’ve spent a chunk of the last few days watching ALT-C from afar, a few of us having taken ourselves off to a quiet room where we could watch the streaming in peace, mostly to avoid the routine interruptions you would get at your desk trying to follow a conference.

Donald Clark’s fiery keynote got the back channel buzzing, more with disatisfaction than anything else. He criticised lectures as an effective teaching method, then crucially not saying what he would replace them with. I realised how alienated I feel by having a speaker that swears liberally.

Dave White’s talk about the future of online learning and the future of universities was much more cordial and engaging but I want to revisit his talk when it goes online. I think I was finding watching in Elluminate not great for my attention levels. (Funny how much he sounds like Russell Brand when you can’t see him!)

Sugata Mitra’s Keynote on his famous work with “hole in the wall” computers and self-instruction in groups of children. It’s well worth finding out about his work if you haven’t. The thing that struck me the most was that the powerful examples he showed us all involved children teaching themselves in groups and he said that the process doesn’t work with individuals. This got me thinking about how much we talk about “personalised learning”, providing devices for individuals etc. I’m not saying that there’s necessarily a contradiction, just that it’s something I’ve mentally flagged up for more thought later.

PRINCE2

I’m away all next week being trained on PRINCE2 project management. It’ll be pretty intense and I’m glad I have Helen Blanchett (also from Netskills) there as a buddy.

Maybe just a brief Chalknote next week.

On a personal note…

Got the bike pictured on last week’s Chalknote, the Specialized Sirrus. Not my first choice but the shop had run out of the Ridgebacks. You snooze, you lose! I pick it up next Thursday, then begins the process of it actually becoming part of my routine, rather than a shiny new toy.

After 2 Larsson’s and an abortive Pratchett I’m now reading Vikram Seth’s An Equal Music.