Completely bogged down in project management and administration and endless meetings at moment - little time to compose anything interesting, still less for keeping up with the ongoing debates.

One thing I have been meaning to post is an account of the JISC Online Conference ‘Innovating e-Learning 2006’ held the week before last.

This was the first on-line conference I had ever participated in and - to be honest - I was sceptical beforehand.

How could a conference work without the social interaction - and evening drinks - which characterize face to face gatherings. Would there be meaningful discussion or would the discussions more resemble chat room inanities. Would it be possible o concentrate on an on-line conference for a sustained period of time.

The conference was organised in topics, each with a number of parallel sessions. Just as in a face to face conference, each session had an introduction. These varied a bit in format - form downloadable 'traditional' conference papers' to flash based transparencies with audio to full multi media in different formats.

Certainly the availability of the papers prior to the conference made preparation much easier.

At first I tried to follow all the strands but rapidly realised that this was not possible. I found it a bit difficult dipping in and out - there was not the luxury of being away form the office.

On the other hand, the on-lien format allowed me to commit myself over four of the five days the conference lasted - this would not have been possible in a face to face event.

Best of all was the quality of the discussions. perhaps I am being unfair comparing the conference with a face to face event but that is all I have to compare it with. And the discussions were - as a whole - more focused, more interesting, faster moving and of a much higher standard than in comparable events.

there were many, many interesting issues raised and I will try to write about some of these over the next couple of weeks - in the meantime one session I particularly enjoyed was on Mobile Technologies organised by James Clay from the Western Colleges Consortium (WCC) for Online Learning.

The conference is still open for viewing but you need to be registered. The highlights can be found on the e-Learning Focus website  and on the JISC website.

All in all, an impressive and enjoyable event.

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