Conference – Day 1

My day officially started at 4.30 when the crashing waves from my ambient playlist jolted me out of sleep.  I had been dozing in and out since 1.30. I lay in bed trying to block out the noise, but had to get up and turn it down. Unfortunately, it no longer drowned out my snoring roommate. (Tonight I will turn it down a bit so the transition between songs isn’t so drastic.) By 5.00 I thought, “screw it, I’m getting up.” I went to the fitness room and started on the bike. It was one of those typical gym exercise bikes, not upright like a real bike, so I changed to the treadmill after 5 minutes.  I wasn’t the first person there.  Some guy was pumping iron. By 6.00 I was back in the room and getting ready – my roommate was still sawing wood.

I woke her up at 7 and by 8 we were at the conference centre.  We had a delicious breakfast (sorry forgot to take a pic) of bacon, scrambled eggs, hash brown potatoes, pastries, juice, smoothies, and coffee/tea before the welcomes, introductions, and keynotes got started. After that was a quick break of muffins, hummus and pita, and fruit before the actual session started.

I went to the PBLA Digital Tracking Tools session first.  It was interesting to see the behind-the-scenes, but more aimed at program supervisors. Then it was lunch.  There were a few options. I went for the caesar salad with meatballs and tomato soup. There was a biscotti-tiramisu dessert as well.

After lunch I went to the Maximizing the CLB Support Toolkit session where I got a refresher on this toolkit/manual. It was good to look at it again after having taught a few sessions.  Now I think I can better plan assessments. There was another short coffee break after this and then the final session: Task Based Planning – Starting with the End in Mind. There were so many people wanting to participate we had to move to the dining hall to accommodate everyone.  It too was a refresher on module planning and assessment building.

There was a quick 15 minute closing and door prizes (I didn’t win anything) before it was all over. I headed back to the hotel and emailed everyone to see who was doing what.  (Unlike the other groups here, we sure don’t have any organization for extra-curricular activities.)  we found out last minute that a few went to a local pub. Cleo and I hustled over to the Sherlock Holmes pub.  I had a Guinness and a fish taco. Both were delicious. The rest had burgers and fish and chips. We all headed over to the Westin for the networking mixer. It was pretty low key. The drinks weren’t free and the food was up-market. I had a few olives and zucchini before I left. To be honest I was tired after the conference.

So far I haven’t learned much new, but revisiting materials I greased through to get certification back in the beginning was worthwhile. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.