June 2011 Road Trip

It was time again for my favourite conference of the year - the Canadian Society for Studies in Education (CSSE) annual conference, which is part of the SSHRC Congress - the largest social science and humanities conference in Canada and I made sure to take lots of photos. The conference was held this year in Fredericton, New Brunswick so we had to catch an early morning plane from Calgary. Fortunately (or unfortunately) I forgot my laptop, which meant I was going to be partially "unplugged" for the trip.

I had visited Fredericton and the University of New Brunswick campus about ten years ago and I had very pleasant memories of my visit. It really is an idea government/university town and might be a great place for one of our boys to go to university. While at the conference I presented a couple of sessions. One on our group work study, Moving to their own beat: Exploring how students use digital technologies to support group work, outside of the classroom. And, one on our education undergraduate study, Investigating the Impact of Student Participation in an Undergraduate Society. From my perspective, both sessions went well and it was fun presenting with other members of our Department of Education & Schooling at Mount Royal University. I was also involved in the Technology and Teacher Education (TATE) pre-conference session but I wasn't able to be part of Jodi Nickel's Portfolios for Self-Assessment session or Zehra Akyol's The Development of a Metacognition Questionnaire in the Context of Online and Blended Communities of Inquiry session. One of my biggest pleasures at the conference was having access to a UNB bicycle which allowed me to opportunities to explore the numerous pathways. A great form of exercise and relaxation!!

After the CSSE conference, I flew to Ottawa for a couple of days at the cottage. They were very productive days as I was able to do quite a bit of spring cleaning with Bill as well as travel to Kingston to pick-up our new windsurfer.

From the cottage, I flew to Washington, DC for the weekend for the Lilly DC Conference on Teaching and Learning. The organizers had asked me to facilitate a closing keynote/workshop session on Blended Learning in Higher Education: Promises and Pitfalls. The conference held at a hotel in Bethesda, Maryland, which meant another long cab ride. The weather was excellent and I was able to get in a couple of long runs along the old Georgetown railway track during my stay.

I then headed back to the cottage a bit tired but still able to do some more cleaning as well as assemblying the new insurance ping pong table and BBQ :) I finally headed back to Calgary after being away for nearly two weeks (I don't think I'll go for these extended trips in the future :)