More images of EDEN

The coffee and lunch marquee, Martin Bean keynote speech and Ama giving it stick in the NAP new members meeting.

More EDEN Pictures

Some more pictures from EDEN this year in Valencia: Steve Wheeler, George Siemens, Gila Kurtz

Planes, people and places

I'm just back from the EDEN Conference, having spent just over 15 hours travelling, via 4 trains, a bus and a much delayed flight. The plane eventually arrived, but when we finally landed at London Gatwick, I had missed all of my connections, and I finally arrived home very late. Yet regardless of the travel difficulties, it will be the people I met that will reside in my memory the most.

I had a lot of fun at this year's EDEN Conference, and I would like to express my thanks to all those responsible for the organisation of the event. From the great idea of having the marquee outside the venue for lunch, drinks etc., to the inspired choice of the city of Valencia to hold the conference in, all ran smoothly and was enjoyed by all. Valencia is in some ways its own kind of Eden, with a city plan that is divided by a meandering city park that has replaced the course of an old river bed. You can walk for miles along this and simply take in the beautiful scenary, the jacaranda trees in full bloom, and the orange groves heavy with their sweet fruit. The stunning Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias (City of the Arts and Sciences) provides a futuristic spectacle both day and night and is well worth an hour or two of wandering around, just to appreciate the sense of scale and space, as well as the fine attention to detail the complex affords.

At the conference, I loved 'Mr Bean' (as usual, Martin Bean, Vice Chancellor of the UK Open University, was a great keynote speaker and raised some key issues for us to think about at the outset of the event) and I loved hearing George Siemens for the first time. I managed to talk to both of them during the conference and I am impressed the depth of knowledge each has, and their keen ability to convey their ideas succinctly and accessibly. I also enjoyed my brief sparring match with George over the title of 'e-learning' and whether it was still a valid and relevant term to use to describe what we do most of our working days. Michael Moore who was sat next to me was expertly dragged into the debate by the ever urbane Alan Tait (pictured above), and the Twittersphere was also buzzing for a short while as many people not at the event also weighed in with their views. For me, the jury is still out on this issue, even though one of the final plenaries saw Jim Devine create something of a reworking of what the 'e' stands for in e-learning - echoing in many ways a keynote I gave several years ago at the University of Wales. I'm playing devil's advocate still - do we really need the 'e' in e-learning anymore, or does it still serve a purpose?

It was wonderful talking to so many smart people about their passion of advancing e-learning further. I had several prolonged discussions with new President of EDEN, Morten Flate Paulsen and other members of the executive committee, such as Denes Zarka and Ari-Matti Auvinen and touched base with other old friends including Nikitis Kastis, Montse Guittert, Albert Sangra, Thomas Fischer, Marci Powell, Niall Sclater, Thomas Kretchmer, Grainne Conole and Sally Reynolds. I also met several people face to face whom I had been linked previously online, including Alex Pickett, Deborah Allen, Sebastian Fiedler and Ricardo Torres Kompen. New friends were made, such as Peter Shea, Thomas Richter and Stephen Jenner, and many more whose names have slipped me, but will not doubt bump into again and have more interesting conversations with. Thank you all - you made my short stay in beautiful Valencia cerebral, enjoyable and memorable (Apologies if I have misspelt any of your names).

I can't wait for next year's EDEN conference in Dublin. I will for the first time be able to get a direct flight from my home town of Plymouth, and be there in just over an hour.

Setting a President

So my friend Morten Flate Paulsen has been duly elected the 100th President of EDEN (Surely some mistake here? - Ed) and takes over the office from Alan Tait. I'm sure Morten will do a great job, because, coming from Viking stock, he will take no nonsense from anyone. Actually, joking aside, Morten is one of the nicest guys you could ever expect to meet - quiet spoken, but extremely intelligent, well qualified, hugely popular and a very good looking guy as well. OK, I'm creeping here, because I gather there are some Presidential body guard jobs going, and I like to wear the shades, and hover my hand threateningly close to my inside pocket, you know what I mean? (You'll be lucky - Ed).

I know Morten has some great ideas about how to advance the cause of EDEN, because I have been listening to some of them during this week in Valencia. He has already asked me my views on how we can improve communications across the network of more than 1200 members. He will be exploring how the NAP members site for example, can be improved and extended. There will no doubt be some time and energy invested into how social web tools can be used to transform EDEN's presence and raise its profile. Alan Tait did a great job as the 99th President (Look, stop this now - Ed) and we are all grateful to him for steering us this far. Now Morten has taken over, I am sure the momentum will continue, and I hope to be a part of his outrider cavalcade - I have the shades, the ear piece and the dark suit already prepared. (Right, that's it! He's not the President of the United States, Steve, so stop this now, or I'm telling your Mum - Ed)

Getting you bloggers to write...

Look, I'm only going to post text OK? I don't have time for all this image and video posting malarky, I neither have the technology nor the proclivity. (Some large words there Steve - Ed). I will leave that to the likes of whizz kids like Eva Suba and Idilko Whatsername.

But I will say this - the shared blog at this year's conference is working very well - the only thing we need now is MORE BLOGGERS! Come on you lot - where are you all? I'm sure you have something to say after day 1 of a great event. Let's have your comments posted on this blog - your images, videos, sound bites and podcasts, your social tags, your conference badges, your left over biscuits, paella (... steady on - you've gone a bit too far - Ed). ...

I just want to get some of you bloggers to contribute something you want to share ... I'm looking forward to reading it...

Valencia, varied and voracious

We have enjoyed an interesting and varied programme here at Day 1 proper of the 19th EDEN Conference. The day dawned bright and almost cloudless, in great contrast to last evening, when the rain in spain became a pain and threatened to send our good hopes down the drain. We have met for coffee and lunch in the large marquee outside the main conference venue - in itself a good decision, because it gives us all a chance to don our sunglasses, and pose outside in th bright sun, networking, chatting, entering into conspiratorial circles (surely not - Ed) and generally making a nuisance of ourselves. Some complained that the excellent Valencian Paella they served up for lunch was all gone by the time they arrived at the marquee. Some people must have voracious appetites then, but you know what they say - the early bird catches the worm. (Look, I am not suggesting that there were any vermiform creatures cooked up in the paella, OK?). Anyway, we all enjoyed lunch. There were many excellent conversations to be had with the likes of George Siemans, Niall Sclater, Thomas Richter, Grainne Conole, Michael Moore, Ricardo Torres Kompen, Gila Kurtz, Ann Gaskell, Judith Collier,Jenny Kilgore, Pedro Nito, Alan Tait, Jack Koumi and many many more too numerous to mention. But I'm not going to drop any names, you understand.

This morning two great keynotes from Martin Bean (see my previous post) and his 'new Canadian best mate' George Siemens, set the scene for another memorable event. George in particular made some bold statements about the nature of courses and their failure to tap into the current needs of students who reside firmly in the world of digital media. It's not about knowledge acquisition he said, it's about making connections, and many traditional courses don't provide this opportunity. At the end of the plenasy, we had all been well and truly Siemenized.

My own session was shared with Claudio Del Rio, Thomas Richter (Stepping in for Ulf-Daniel Ehlers) and Gila Kurtz and was held in the main conference hall. We were very fortunate to have about 120 delegates listening to us, and there was quite a lively discussion after each paper presentation. I spoke on using blogs and wikis in a variety of combinations to promote a range of reflective and collaborative learning opportunities, and using 'blikis' to encourage deeper negotiation of meaning among peers. Others related their own research tales, ranging from great success to abject failure. It was, I think, a very honest and open session.

More later from the conference when I get some time.

Revive workshop podcast

There is the first 10 minutes slice podcast of the Revive workshop.

A grand opening

While there are no official openings for EDEN conferences - no standing to attention with hands on hearts while the national anthem of the host country is played, and no tacky parades or similar malarky - there is always a welcome reception. And tonight, for the 19th Conference (yes, next year in Dublin will be our 20th anniversary!) we all gathered in a rather splendid marquee outside the conference venue to watch (but not hear - the microphone was woefully inadequate) current EDEN President Alan Tait welcome delegates to the event, and then award a Senior Fellowship of EDEN to distance education pioneer and Briton Michael Moore (yes, he's one of ours, youse guys!).

There were also a small number of Fellowship awarded to a smattering of applause, and then people went back to their drinks and chat. Several interesting conversations were had, and these continued for a number of us later down on the seafront, in a most excellent fish restaurant. I will when I have more time recount (and possibly recant) some of the conversation topics in later posts, but for now, EDEN looks set for another great few days. If the rain holds off (it's been tipping it down here in Valencia this evening) it will be a memorable one - there are almost 400 delegates here from 49 countries, and the sessions run into Saturday lunchtime.

I'll stop there - more to report tomorrow as it happens.