eLearning Roadtrip

Snapshots from the Road

In the spirit of "a picture is worth a thousand words", here are a few snapshots from December roadtrips, including a trip to Berlin and another to northern Wisconsin. This time the travel itself became part of the story. Sonoma to San Francisco to Frankfurt, no problem. But then - snow in central Europe and the UK. Flights to Berlin were cancelled. So we did what any sensible traveler would do - we took the train. Got to Berlin a few hours later. Luggage arrived a couple days after that.

This was the 16th Annual meeting of Online Educa Berlin, the largest and most international elearning conference that I attend. It is held at the Intercontinental Hotel on Budapeststrasse. The main bar is the Marlena Bar. It is the site of many meetings, gatherings, networkings, reunions, and rendezvous during the first fews days of December. I learn as much from watching and listening to what's going on here as I do from the plenaries and sessions.

Berlin in early December is a wonderland of Christmas lights and craft markets. Hard not to get into the holiday spirit.

  
Despite this year's freezing temperatures plenty of Berliners gather for gluwein and jagertee, at Christmas markets all over the city. This one, the Weihnachts Markt near the Opernpalais along the Unter der Linden, is particularly good.

 
Sunday morning and once again snow threatened. Thankfully there were no flight cancellations this time, and only minor delays along the way. Before I knew it I was on the way back to San Francisco.

Which was good, since I turned around a few hours later on a red-eye to Green Bay. Just in time for the first artic blasts of the season. Within two days of arriving the bay out front of my family home had frozen over.

Fortunately my flights back to the west coast squeeked through a small window of clear skies, so I arrived back in Sonoma in time for a taste of winter, Wine Country style. That means it was sprinkly rainy, with temperatures in the mid 50s F. Fog rolling down from the hills around the valley, like big clouds of cotton candy. Fields are emerald green. Definitely not the kind of winter I grew up with!

Around the corner, through the eucalyptus grove. The fog and rain seem to bring out the smell of the sap in the trees. One of my favorite places.

 It's good to bring the Roadtrip home.

Dispatch from the Road -The Other Side of Jane Hart, #oeb10

Thanks to social media tools like Twitter, many of us who work in the technology-mediated learning arena find ourselves making lasting connections with fellow practitioners of this thing that we do with technology and learning from all over the world. With a little bit of practice and with virtual venues such as #Lrnchat and Facebook, one can form astonishingly robust connections with people that we wouldn't recognize if we walked past them on the street.

These days, when I attend an industry event such as DevLearn, WCET or Online Educa Berlin, I find myself scanning the tweetstream to see who else is attending that event, and then trying to find those people to say hello, face-to-face. Finding a fellow "tweeter" at a conference is a bit like finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow...and I know I am not the only one who feels this way. It always makes me smile when I overhear, "Wow, I follow you on Twitter. it is so great to meet you in person!" (a comment often followed by something like "uh, you don't look anything like your photo" or, my personal favorite, "That avatar looks just like you!"). It reminds me of how important it is to never forget about cultivating the other side, the inter-personal side, of the connections that we create online.

In the past few weeks  I have had the pleasure of spending face-to-face, in-person time at both Online Educa Berlin and at DevLearn with one of my personal favorite people to follow, UK-based social media expert Jane Hart. On Twitter, Jane is better known as @C4LPT.  As the managing director of the Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies, Jane has been helping educational institutions and  businesses understand how new technologies can be used to improve education, training as well as business performance. She currently focuses on the use of social media for collaborative learning and working - as well as for social media marketing.

Can I just say - Jane's Top 100 Tools for Learning and her Pick of the Day are resources I use all the time. Best way I have found to keep track of the constant stream of new social media tools. If you are an elearning professional, whether corporate or from education, you need to know about Jane. 

Tonight, as Jane and I and a number of us converged upon Marlena's Bar at the Intercontinental Hotel for a glass of wine following our session, talking and laughing and teasing and telling funny stories to and about each other, I reflected on how very nice it is to have the chance to sit around a table looking each other square in the eye. Have to say, I like knowing Jane and friends even better than I like knowing about her :-)

Next time I check out Jane's Pick of the Day, you have to know that I will be smiling, thinking about the warmth of the camaraderie we all shared this evening. It was a treat to spend time on the other side, the non-digital, inter-personal side, of Jane Hart and friends.