Home for a while

I've been traveling more than I've been home this summer. I have no trips on my calendar for August, but that may change soon. I'm going to work with Joanne on our book project, I'll probably go to Eugene to work on the extension of my PT3 grant, and I may go to LA. But otherwise, it will be a slow month! Even though I was on vacation for three weeks in Europe, it was a "bus driver's" holiday... we never stayed more than three days in one place at any time. Then, practically as soon as I came home, I was on Vancouver Island for the Connect2Learning Assessment Conference, then to Cupertino for the Apple Distinguished Educator "Camp Apple."

I was home for less than two days, and then off to Columbus, Ohio, for the Council of Independent Colleges Teaching and Learning Mentors Institute, where I led a conference strand on electronic portfolios for the first afternoon (an overview of electronic portfolios in higher education), a full day hands-on in a lab (ePortfolios with Office, Digital Storytelling with MovieMaker2), and the last morning (Balancing ePortfolio as test with ePortfolio as story). It was gratifying to hear people tell me how much better they understood what ePortfolios were (and were not). It was an exhausting three days, including the trip home on Friday afternoon so that I could be back to enjoy the weekend at our cabin in the woods.

I am hoping that Joanne and I can get re-energized on our book writing. AERA preparation took a lot of our time this spring. I did not submit a proposal to this year's AERA on purpose. It will be in Montreal, and I probably won't have travel money under my grant. I am also being very cautious about which conferences I send proposals. I am considering an education conference in Hawaii in early January, right after New Years, because it would be a good excuse to go to Hawaii. Haven't been there in years.

I received a call from the person helping to organize the ePortfolio conference in France. My keynote is on the second morning, not the first (I guess that is OK) and I get to name my topic. I suggested "ePortfolios: Your Digital Story of Learning." Then I can incorporate a lot of my focus on digital storytelling. But it looks like they don't have anyone interested in doing a breakout session on digital storytelling...no imagination! I also suggested that they organize a showcase session where individuals could show examples of their e-portfolios, much like we do in the ISTE Assessment & Technology Forum Gallery Walk.