August 24-27 in Banff Alberta the early adopters of video conference came together to share and learn from each other.
The keynote presenters were mostly international and did a great job. The sessions were mostly presented by Albertans. In fact many of them are members of the 2Learn Regional Video Conference Lead Network. Those that were not members had benefited from the assistance of this group of dedicated professional educators who have made it their mission in life to enhance education with vc technology. The website is still online and you can see what you missed by going to Elevate 2008.
I think the keynote that made the biggest impression on me was Carol Daunt Skyring an educator from Australia. She was very entertaining and had a lot of common sense in her presentation. I think it is fair to say that Canada's geographical challenges are small potatoes compared to Australia's. They tend to be leading the way with distributed learning out of necessity. Do check out her website.
I did attend some great concurrent sessions. I think the highlight was an Alberta initiative on using vc for Robot clubs.
Do check out the Elevate website as there was way more than I could attend.
The good thing was the location. Who doesn't like Banff in late summer? Marian and my daughter, Emily, came with me so we hiked, canoed and ate a lot of Cows ice cream. Great time!
