Not so grumpy?

Not so grumpy today. That might be because the sun is shinning. (For those in Swansea, I'll take some photographs so you can see what it looks like ;-).

Started today with two really good sessions. One from Andy Ramsden on QR codes - could be really useful. The other was by the ever excellent David White on the 'Visitor-Resident principle.' It's always good to see Presnky's Digital Natives ideas get a bit of a kicking but rather than just rubbish the idea the Visitor-Resident principle gives a much more useful view of how people use the Internet. It has implications for educators and staff developers. Great stuff!!

Today was also my poster session. I had some interesting discussions and the '12 steps' seems quite popular.

ALT-C once again........

I must confess I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with ALT-C. Whilst there are lots of interesting people to meet and much to talk about, there is an awful lot of twaddle and people admiring their navels. For example, there was a really rather pointless session on 'the VLE is dead' - all a bit playgroundy IMHO - let's get on with what we're doing rather than throwing stones at each other because of the technology we're using. That only leads to this. As Seymour Papert said, "If there is a why, any how will do."

There was a great keynote to kick of the conference by Michael Wesch, which I guess will be online at some point. The Chair then spoilt it a bit, in classic ALT style, by appearing to only take questions from people he knew. That seems to happen every time I come to ALT-C. I wonder if it's a policy or more an indication that ALT has an 'in' crowd so it's all about who you know?

Hmmm...... this seems like a bit of a moan. However, I am looking forward to tomorrow's sessions on QR Codes , the 'Visitor-Resident' principle and using Appreciative Inquiry with ePortfolios.