blink and you miss 5 years

At times it almost seemed that it was only last year I was last at ALT-C. This week I was back, for the first time in 5 years and it was lovely to see some old friends and faces, who I've missed over years when I've only done the Bb circuit along with HELF and EPEDexperts. In retrospect - not that this has been entirely my own choice - it was a mistake to be away so long, for me and for my institution (although, the institution has had delegates there). It was interesting to see how many of the faces are what - a few of us are senior managers, a few are 'researchers' (wherever they sit in the academic/L&T hiearchy), a few are still doing the same job (personally, I and Andy R were a little quietly envious of this) and there were plenty of others I didn't know and some I did because they have appeared on the scene in the intervening years and work for/with people I know. Others are still in subject centres or with vendors and a delight to see them too.

I came away with contrasting emotions, some of which I was still struggling with with Matt and Steven on Tuesday, and explored long on Wednesday night with Andy R in agreement. Monday and Tuesday were quite frustrating. I felt I'd missed 5 years and not missed anything. Some of the issues inherent in such a large conference where the abstracts go in up to 8 months prior to the event, where you only have 12 minutes to present (please - 3 presenters is a nogo unless you really do have understood how to present in 12 minutes) which is an art in itself, and where the range of institutions, levels, topics and role srepresented by the speakers and audience. is so broad. These issues were all still there. 

And some of the things still being discussed were things that we were discussing in 2002/3. Why is this? Interesting to reflect on the changes that have happened. I have just circulated my ALT-C2002 presentation on Embedding the Giving and Receiving of Feedback to some staff at Teesside, as it is still very relevant to improving some ailing NSS results. I remember giving the paper, standing room only and people sitting on the floor and it being well received. I did have the powerpoint available on my old webpages at Durham but because we don't have webspace at Teesside and I've never got round to rebuilding a personal website and have only just got round to thinking that all of those resources I had (remember this is someone who never used to approve of giving the same presentation more than once!) need to be slideshared. If we had had twitter and slideshare as common back then - or even Crowdvine - so many great resources would still be helping people now. I wonder how many are gathering dust? So I've learnt I must do this soon - and record audio over them, and I hope others do too. Or perhaps they have, so where do I go to collect all their work? I resisted putting all my details in to crowdvine - I twitter so much personal drivel it looked a bit odd on my profile page to people who don't know me. But perhaps a crowdvine type thing is the way to extend networks and resources beyond the blogs, slideshare accounts etc that I do know about. My new year's resolution (always makes more sense to me for people in academia to make them now) is to find out a way to find these and collect them in a way I can review them. Netvibes, perhaps. 

So I began the week frustrated by how some things haven't changed. After all, we're in the business of change management and moving forwards - surely shouldn't that 5 years have taken us to a level where I was aware of the gap? At least I didn't feel I'd got behind (tho I will talk about virtual worlds on an official update, and it was such a prevailing theme that I regret not having made it myself to EDEN and ReLIVE instead of sending staff) in most areas. But I suppose I'm disappointed that much of the same ground was being covered - what should we be learning/have learnt about these things we were discussing? Are we missing something about being able to scale and embed these ideas and enhancements? Is it because we've been hung up on VLEs - do they affect it? (I think not, judging by the same or similar issues across institutions with different flavours of VLEs or none, so no point in wasting more breath on that.) So what is it? On the one hand, we all still seemingly have fodder for papers for another few years of our careers - ideal if you are a researcher, but more worrying to me if you are in Learning Technology and should be horizon scanning too! We're all falling in to an economic contraction - if we haven't embedded the things we've been trying over the last few years with all the staff, projects, fundings we've had, how are we going to do that in the coming leaner years? Is the onward march of free social software suddenly going to bring a tipping point where generation V solves all these questions for us....? I fear not.

And this brought me to slightly different emotions by the end of the week. As well as the opportunity to catch up with the lovely people I've missed over the years, and whose work I've deeply respected for years, I also saw new cliques, new leaders in the current field (if that is, in fact at all different from the one it was when we were the resident group of buddies). I saw people who come and go as the new names in a crowd. Some there 5 years ago have gone, have moved on and now others are established. I can see others who will take on that mantle in another few years, both in LT generally and in the Bb communities too. I've never had any real desire to be famous, and whilst it was nice that people remembered me, I'm very happy for my work to speak for itself (so, I have to make sure that I am not gagging it, and release it into the social wild), and my expertise on crowdvine of self-effacement in pretentious get-togethers is an honest reflection. But it did make me think about the future - some of the hellos will have been goodbyes. 

Not feeling a part of the crowd anymore meant I wasn't really sure about hanging out with the F-ALT crowd, as I wasn't sure that I 'belonged' anymore. On the other hand, we do a great job in our team and I've known for a while that we need to get out and share more of the stuff we do, and was hoping to be able to do more of that now with a bigger team in place. I need to promote the good practice we have much more, but I don't really feel comfortable about throwing myself back into the middle of the fray!. And at the same time as I'm thinking about withdrawing from the field altogether. So I came away with the comment of 'Come on, you've missed it all. You love it really' from Tuesday night ringing in my ears, but facing a reality that events I do this year to put us [back] on the map may be the last (though am mostly not trying to think this until that is a certainty, way too many chickens). So how do I therefore do my best to promote my team and our work and remake and consolidate relationships, knowing deep down that this may be a fleeting relationship with me personally. How will that affect me personally? Will it make it harder to leave? The experience last year of the two periods I took out of work were that I didn't look back. But that was from an internal and a Bb perspective. Steve was right, I probably do miss the wider buzz of the community. Regaining the whole spectrum of LT activity that I have missed being involved in while at Teesside - it seems such a long time since I was up for an NTFS - makes me think that there'll be more to miss than I thought. Also because it's going to be more common to think of 'possibly lasts' - and already this summer I've faced that and I'll have to develop a coping mechanism for that, and quickly, so that work doesn't suffer - not that I think anyone would ever fear a demob happy attitude from me. But also so that when the Bishop asks if I will mind giving up work, I still don't hesitate.

How on earth am I going to give enough to my study this year while getting all the rest of my LT career done, tied up and finished in the time that would be left? Even if I kept in touch as a 7th day ministry? SO much to do! And a pile of reading to do for seminars a week on Monday, which I'm really looking forward to, so perhaps in the end it won't be a hard decision after all.....What will the next five years hold? Thanks for all the great discussions and company this week. Whatever happens next, I've been blessed to work with such inspiring and thought-provoking colleagues over the last 10+ years.

Update: a great summary here too!

tags: altc2009  conference  work