I just completed my day-long workshop Learning objects, wikis, and other curious things at Maricopa College in Arizona, which some of you will recognise as the home territory of Alan Levine.
Coming to Mr. Levine’s turf to hold forth on reusable learning resources and emergent technologies felt like heading down to the Grand Ole Opry to lecture the locals on the finer points of country music. It was additionally weird because most of the work I’m proudest of has been developed in collaboration with Alan, while for this event he had made it clear that this was my show, not another Three Amigos Production (he had plenty to do coordinating logistics on the ground). (I should state that while this gig might reek to some of cronyism, in fact the invitation was engineered by someone who had never met me before.)
I won’t go into too much detail about the the shindig itself, other than to note that once again I was fortunate to work with a stellar group of participants. When you are in a room with thirty talented, smart, eager and fun people, facilitating is a delight, and often quite easy.
Now that the so-called work is done, I’m looking forward to taking advantage of this beautiful region for some time with the family. We’re presently being entertained in high style by Alan and his wonderful companions (human and canine), including a trip yesterday on the Verde Canyon Railroad and an excursion to the revived ghost mining town of Jerome, both of which were an absolute blast, and especially perfect for those traveling with a toddler boy besotted by trains, horse-rides and such.
The next week will hopefully consist of more time here in the crisp, cool, sunny perfection of the Arizona mountains, a quick run over the Mexican border for a dose of family-friendly chaos, finishing up with a stop at one of my all-time favorite haunts, the Hotel Congress in Tucson.
I won’t have email access until April 10th or so. That’s correct, more than a week completely unplugged — five years ago that would have been no big deal at all, now it seems almost unthinkable. Hopefully my professional presence is not so indispensable as I sometimes like to think.
See you on the other side.
