Free lunch #eSTEeMconf15

This free lunch was at a conference at the OU in Milton Keynes. To get my free lunch I sprung from my bed like a startled antelope at 05:00 and pointed the car northwards about an hour later. A bit of frisson at the horrendous delays at the Dratford Tunnel caused by over-running roadworks but I made it by 08:45 and the car park Gods were kind. I shifted up Walton Drive faster than Linford Christie; more than 2 hours in the car meant that I needed to relieve myself urgently, and then it was time to register and get in amongst it.

Lots of friends there - folk I've known for years in a variety of contexts. To some I'm an advisor who used to conduct guidance interviews at any time of day or night; whenever a student wanted a chat. To others I only live online in forums and emails. To a few I'm a random phone call from time to time or someone they bump into only at gigs like this. Sometimes it's difficult trying to remember which persona someone knows because while they are all me they are often different. For example, online I speak with a southern accent but face-to-face I speak properly. I'm also much taller, much thinner and far younger online - in fact I often don't recognise myself.

The conference was smashing with two splendid keynotes. Paul Jones from Cranfield told us about a really interesting mixed-group teaching project. 'A' level students, apprentices, under and postgrads working together to solve practical engineering problems. Linda Price from IET posed the question "Using technology in teaching and learning: is it scholarly?". She drilled to the heart of this and opened out many of the issues the university must face as we move more and more to technology-mediated teaching and learning.

Then the workshops and I really enjoyed the ones I went to. Some stuff I picked up included the difficulty of calibrating sound-measurement apps on non-Apple products because of the range of microphones used by different tablet and smartphone manufacturers. Great presentation about using Twitter to "leak" content to the wider world and then a fascinating project looking at how different disciplines are using a particular online tool.

Then a poster session and I was surprised that at a conference with "Technology Enhanced Learning in Practice " as the tagline nobody had used a QR code on their poster. I might have missed one but I'd have thought it should be used by everyone so that I didn't have to take photographs of URLS to check later. 

Lunch and then I had to split to get back for something which I should have been doing this evening but which was cancelled about an hour into my return trip. No biggie, much as I'd have enjoyed the afternoon I'd then have faced the rush hour traffic and that's not a joy I've missed too much since I started being a man of leisure.

All up a smashing day and a free lunch :-)