Ascilite 2011 - what a buzz!

Hobart is the venue for this year's Ascilite conference and I love it - probably because it is so like Dunedin. It even has a hill with a pregnant woman shape just like at home, and the plants are very similar. The conference has had some really interesting topics. People really are doing some amazing innovations and research. I was particularly impressed with Gilly Salmon's keynote and the plenary sessions on the first day. It was hard to move from there as everything was so interesting. More about that later. Gilly told us about the Media Zoo, (she developed this while at the University of Leicester) to promote PD for learning design using a metaphor - different animals represent different types of professional development projects. She also invited people to contribute examples of good practice in onine facilitation for her new e-tivities book coming out soon.

Following my presentation I got talking to Belinda Allen and Kathryn Coleman about ePortfolios and their ideas of creativity that they mentioned in their talk. Kathryn told me about the Assessment toolkit they had developed at the University of New South Wales.  It looks good. I was fairly pleased with my presentation - Is reflective writing an enigma? (Also in the title - Can preparing evidence for an electronic portfolio develop skills for reflective practice?) As soon as I get home I will record some audio to accompany it - otherwise it doesn't mean much. I was asked lots of questions after the session and during fodder breaks. The Reflective Framework provoked lots of discussion which was excellent. I will post more later once I get to some decent broadband - balancing the laptop on my knee at my motel door to get connectivity means the post is going to be short.Check out the wonderful art created by Gilly's partner (I presume) who also does this kind of artwork for her presentations. He drew this as she talked about the different areas of scaffolding. Building the scaffold in action.