Space (centre): the no-Phil Frontier

Having been asked to help coordinate a "Creative Assessment to Help Eliminate Plagiarism" workshop as part of the joint JISC/HEA e-asy Assessment day at the National Space Centre, I arrived in Leicester late last night to be told by the organisers that Professor Phil Race, the advertised keynote speaker, was ill and unable to attend, so "could I step in"?

3 beers, a glass of wine and a pizza-full of persuasion later, meant sleep was postponed while I re-purposed a collection of resources and wrote a presentation to make up a (hopefully!) coherent 2-hour session around the day's theme of "engaging with innovative ways of assessing learners to make assessment e-asy".

Fortunately, when the moment of truth arrived, adrenaline overrode the effects of having had only 3 hours worth of sleep, so my delivery was something close to normal, but after an afternoon workshop, a plenary and three hours to get home, the effects of "boldly going where no one (well me anyway) has gone before" has left me feeling very tired....

PWL 2 : Still glowing like a RediBrek kid outside Sellafield!

Scarman House, Warwick
After 11 months of anticipation and 9 months of planning, Playing with Learning 2 : Making Connections finally arrived to showcase what conferences should be about.
Starting with yours truly doing the welcomes and setting the tone for the day, we then had Gary King, Britain's No1 Graphic Facilitator, explaining how/why he was going to create this year's conference image (last year's is below).

My good friend Kev Brace from the local JISC RSC demoed some interactive voting buttons supplied by Promethian and showed how we were going to use them during the day, followed by Dr Colin Beard and Pr Alan Mortiboys staging a "Desert Island Discuss" - yes, with music - about teaching with emotional intelligence.
Prior to an interruption from a pair of puppets beamed in from California (really the room next door via Huddersfield and back - courtesy of Direct Visual), Kirsten Hardie described her NTFS-recognised "On trial" teaching technique that would follow what proved to be an excellent lunch. Using students - yes we actually get them to participate - and volunteer delegates as prosecuting/defence counsels etc, we put the nation's educators on trial as "not using technology effectively to the benefit of their students". Guilty, by the way. After attending a choice of one from four workshops (while I helped to disassemble our television studio), the delegates gathered again in the main auditorium for 45 minutes worth of final summations from Gary King, Kirsten Hardie & me, before exchanging their feedback sheets (see below) for a free copy of Alan Mortiboy's latest book.

Sample comments include:

• "The best event I've been to since 1994" (We can probably assume that he/she started teaching then, not that 1994 was a landmark year for education!).
• "Not just talking about innovative delivery, actually doing it !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! - why can't all staff development be like this?"
• "A truly wonderful day out, thank you, thank you, thank you"
• "Will be including some of this in my teaching from tomorrow - first time I've ever been able to say that"
• "Thanks for a great event. Truly inspirational"
• "I just wish that all my colleagues had been there too. The ripples of the impact of this event will spread ever outward. It was terrific to be involved in such a high quality event."

Who ate all the pie?

3rd/4th December, Bolton
As a reward for my concerted efforts at a two-day event on the Student Learning Experience , I got to stay in a very posh hotel (the Reebok) and find out what a £20 steak pie tastes like. Disappointingly, it turned out to be pretty much the same as a £5 one, but was probably placed on the nice plate very carefully and with much pride. After all, how else could they justify £20 for a pie in Bolton?

Other than sampling the culinary delights of the North West, delegates from a diverse range of institutions (e.g. HEA Subject Centres, JISC RSCs, FECs, HEIs and a LLN) discussed student expectations, experiences and encounters with higher education, challenges and priorities for the HE sector in using technology by:

• considering the effectiveness of resources which have been developed to support the student learning experience,
• considering how to improve access to and take up of resources for a range of stakeholders,
  identify additional developments/support that may be required to support the student ‘life cycle’,
• exploring how organisations might collaborate further to enhance support for the HE student learning experience.