Autumn days

Apologies for lack of post last week - been struggling with laptop, which arrived back from Poland minus its memory... Also, the key board has acquired a more springy feel, as three screws which attached it to the base were also been left behind. Seems like the laptop had a fabulous time... Fights with HP have ensued over the last two weeks to get back lost parts. Parts all returned, just need to get them re-installed. I'm going to buy a Mac for myself for home-use.

Anyway, the week concluded with a very good conference held at Imperial College, managed by ULCC, on the Future of Technology in Education. Some excellent speakers including people from Google, BBC Backstage, Warwick University and JaNET. Look out for a write-up I'll be doing for the ALT publication. Info here at www.fote2008.com

This week, movements are as follows:
Mon 6th Oct - RVC (Camden)
Tues 7th Oct - Management Diploma course day (UoL)
Wed 8th Oct - RVC (HH)
Thur 9th Oct - BLE Pedagogy Group (LIDC)
Fri 10th Oct - RVC (HH)

Not even a lousy postcard

So, my laptop was shipped off to Poland to get fixed. Great use of resources, HP... My laptop has quite a carbon footprint of its own - two trips to America, one to Barbados and now Poland. It's a good life...

Anyway, depending on when it decides to come back to work, my movements currently look like this for the week ahead:

Mon 22nd - RVC (Camden)
Tues 23rd - RVC (HH)
Wed 24th - meeting at City University
Thurs 25th - LIDC (BLE Steeering Group am; BLE Tech Group pm)
Fri 26th - RVC (HH)

8-10 days without a laptop??!!?!

HP is taking away my laptop tomorrow for some urgent repairs - the catch to open it has fallen off and makes use somewhat impossible. The next two weeks may prove to be challenging - I'm guessing that I will be mainly working at the RVC (Camden and HH) and from home - unless anyone has a spare laptop/desktop I can use? Time to fish out my old PDA!

This week, these will be my movements:

Mon 15th: RVC (Camden)
Tues 16th: Bloomsbury (meetings at SOAS and with Terry Bishop)
Wed 17th: RVC (HH)
Thurs 18th: LIDC (RVC E-Media Unit team Away Day)
Fri 20th: LIDC (meeting with Abby Deamer)

Links from George Siemen's presentation at ALT-C 2008

www.elearnspace.org

www.knowingknowledge.com

www.connectivism.ca

http://ltc.umanitoba.ca/wordpress

BLE Anniversary

This week sees my first anniversary as the BLE Service Manager - time certainly flies when you're having fun. This coming year, I will be planning further training events (including GoogleDocs training off the back of the APT STAIRS project) and looking at where next with BLE developments. Hopefully this will become clearer when the Steering Group meets later this month to look at strategic forward planning.

This week, I will be catching up with admin and planning a few events (BLE Pedagogy meeting in October and the November Blackboard User Group meeting).

Mon-Wed 1st-3rd: RVC (Potters Bar)
Thurs 4th: SOAS
Fri 5th: LIDC

Next week (w/c 8th Sept), I shall be in Leeds from Monday to Thursday for ALT-C and related activities.
On Friday 12th, I shall be working at the RVC in Potters Bar.

w/c/ 18th August

This week will be a quiet week in terms of meetings, so I plan to get my head down and work on some papers, which include the BLE 2008 report, and drafting the interim report for the APT STAIRS project. I will therefore be based between the two RVC campuses, but can change my plans if I am needed in Bloomsbury (though a lot of people are on leave right now).

Mon 18th - RVC (Camden)
Tues - RVC (Hawkshead)
Wed - RVC (Camden)
Thurs - RVC (Hawkshead)
Fri - RVC (Hawkshead)

Next week (w/c 25th Aug) I will be on leave; Jodie Bell will continue to coordinate the Snapshot integration project checking that everyone has sent through what is needed.

w/c 11th August

Mon 11th - RVC (Camden)
Tues 12th - RVC (HH)
Wed 13th - Birkbeck
Thurs 14th - IOE (LKL)
Fri 15th - RVC (Camden)

Using Skype and Twitter is also a great way to find out what I'm doing - would be really useful for BLE staff to get signed up - might cut-down on the spam email I send out!! Email me for details...

w/c 4th August

Mon 4th - RVC (Hawkshead)
Tues 5th - RVC (Camden)
Wed 6th - Meetings in the morning; afternoon at LIDC
Thurs 7th - BLE SG @ SOAS
Fri 8th - RVC (Hawkshead)

Next week

Mon 28th - RVC (Camden)
Tues 29th - LIDC
Wed 30th - RVC (Hawkshead)
Thurs 31st - BLE Tech meeting (Birkbeck)
Fri 1st August - Bloomsbury (College tbc)

Bloomsbury Website updated

Today, I have been getting to grips with Zope to update the BLE pages on the Bloomsbury Colleges website:

Check out my hard work here:
www.bloomsbury.ac.uk/ble

w/c 21st July

Mon 21st - RVC (Camden)
Tues 22nd - RVC (Camden)
Wed 23rd - RVC (Hawkshead)
Thurs 24th - RVC (Camden) and LSHTM (Snapshot consultancy); SOAS for lunch with LIDC staff
Fri 25th - IOE (Snapshot consultancy cont'd)

w/c 14th July

Mon - RVC (Camden)
Tues - Keele University (JISC Innovation Forum)
Wed - Keele
Thurs - Birkbeck
Fri - IOE (LKL)

The week ahead

Mon 7th July - RVC (Camden)
Tues 8th July - LIDC
Wed 9th July - BLE SG (am); Bloomsbury (pm)
Thurs 10th July - RVC (Hawkshead)
Fri 11th July - A/L

Not enough hours in the day

It's a poor excuse, but there really isn't enough time in the day to get done what I need to get done. Anyone else feel like that? These past few weeks, I have been trying to catch up with the minutes taken from lots of meetings that I've attended. I've also been supporting Caroline with the APT STAIRS project launch, which is at the London Knowledge Lab. Please come along (email c.bell@bloomsbury.ac.uk) as there are still places left (food and drinks need to be consumed - we don't want to take anything home!!).

Thurs 19th June: working at the LKL in preparation for the evening launch
Fri 20th June: recovering at the RVC in Potters Bar!

Next week's activities and movements are as follows:
Mon 23rd: RVC, Camden (APT Team meeting)
Tues 24th: RVC, Camden (running seminar at the online conference)
Wed 25th: RVC, Hawkshead
Thurs 26th: SOAS (BLE Tech meeting)
Fri 27th: A/L

The following week is looking like this (but subject to change):
Mon 30th: A/L
Tues 1st July: A/L
Wed 2nd: RVC, Hawkshead
Thurs 3rd: IOE (BLE SG)
Fri 4th: tbc

Next two weeks...

Tues 27th May - am RVC (Camden); pm SOAS
Wed 28th - BBK
Thurs 29th - LIDC (BLE Tech meeting @ 11am)
Fri 30th - RVC (Camden)

Mon 2nd June - Blackboard ASP visit (Amsterdam)
Tues 3rd - LKL
Wed 4th - HeLF meeting (York)
Thurs 5th - RVC (Hawkshead)
Fri 6th - BBK (BLE SG meeting)

Coming up

This coming week, I will be focussing on Blackboard developments - v8 upgrade and current issues in Behind Blackboard. I'll also be running the London Bb/WebCT User Group, working on the May BLE-bulletin, helping Caroline with the APT Launch preparations - please mark 19th June in your diaries now - for a 5.30om start.

Monday - working from home
Tuesday - RVC (Camden)
Wednesday - RVC (Camden)
Thursday - Birkbeck (London Bb/WebCT User Group)
Friday - LSHTM (E-learning Implementation Group) and SOAS

More travels

After a a short visit to the US at the weekend, I'm back for a few days and will then be whizzing off to sunny Manchester for the Bb conference next week. Later in the month, I'll be going over to Amsterdam (with Fiona Fenton) to visit the Bb data centre and to meet Kyung, Daniel, Victor and Quentin. The exercise is really for PR purposes - I expect the visit to improve relations and communications.

I was really pleased with the success of the first Bloomsbury-wide workshop (using Elluminate @ the IOE) and am looking forward to tomorrow's podcasting workshop at SOAS. Thanks to Tim and Mike for their help and support.

Last week, Caroline Bell started as the APT STAIRS Project Officer - she'll be starting her own blog soon for members of the Project Team and anyone else who wants to find out what she's up to.

So, coming up:
Wed 7th - RVC (Hawkshead)
Thurs 8th - SOAS (Podcasting workshop)
Fri 9th - Goldsmiths College (M25 Learning Tech Group)
Mon 12th - RVC (Camden)
Tues 13th - Blackboard Conference
Wed 14th - Blackboard Conference

The week ahead

Mon 28th - RVC (Camden) - Caroline Bell's first day
Tues 29th - Google London office and then the RVC (Camden)
Wed - Fri - on leave. Anyone need some yummy(!) Hershey Bars from the States?

Next week

Monday 21st April - RVC (Camden)
Tuesday - SOAS + LIDC launch
Wednesday - IOE + BLE Elluminate workshop
Thursday - BLE Tech meeting @ LKL
Friday - RVC (Hawkshead)

This Week

This week, my diary is looking like this:

Mon 14th April - RVC (Camden)
Tues - Birkmingham, JISC Conference
Wed RVC (Hawkshead)
Thurs - SOAS
Fri - LIDC (tbc)