Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Wednesday March 26th New Orleans


Started early with the Distance Education Workshop. Gardner Campbell was excellent, and again, a lot of what he said, especially about learning as playing, and making that explicit to learners, resonated. It also reminded me of Marie Jasinski, and how the FAMe Graduate Certificate was a truly great learning experience in every way. How you could learn that much in 9 months was pretty amazing, but to have fun at the same time was even more so :-).

Two other gems from today, again from Gardner: Another word for blog is a publishing platform Blog is as ugly word! Unless we are having compelling experiences with online, you can't design compelling online experiences for your learners. And of course, I can't count, despite having been a bookie's clerk: Podcasting, wikis and blogging keeps a course alive, way beyond the actual course time. Experiences make the "containers" which are courses, much richer (just like travel where people make it all the more memorable).

It was also great to hear Phillip Long again, after he had been to Sydney in 2004 for the sydney Institute Net*Working 2004 e-learning conference. He mentioned Sloodle - a mix of Second Life and Moodle, so have a look for yourself. This will also be featured in the SWSI Wiki (click on 1. E-learning Wiki on the left hand side) Tip of the Week.

Met lots of people at lunch and both the opening reception and the International Reception tonight. Met the most incredibly welcoming and open person, Kate, who made everybody feel like they'd been here twenty times before, as well as have a good laugh, and some beaut Australians from ANU, QUT, USA, UWA and UNZ.

See the essence of New Orleans, and one of the few songs I can play: The Entertainer!


2 comments:

Jacqueline said...

Was that you singing along in the background? lol

jenmam said...

How embarrasing :-) of course it was me. do you remember when I sang Red Red Wine after our FAMe course, it took me two days to record it ;-)