While Mark's away

April 30 - Ohio

Friday was spent in Statesboro at Georgia Southern University. A bit of a taste of the real South - predominance of blacks in the students, and a cat-fish sandwich for lunch. Met with a bunch of staff at the Centre of Excellence in teaching. Ludy Goodson had been very thoughtful in organising a full day of meetings for me, including half an hour with their vice-Provost, responsible for acadmic affairs. A good conversation with her.

Was invited at attend the first half of a presentation by an Apple representative on podcasting and iTunesU. The bit I saw was more about the latter, which I probably found more interesting since it was the bit I knew less about. The CET is undertaking a series of workshops and retreats to expand on current pedagogies. Sounds like much the same challenges as everywhere - getting lecturers to focus on learning outcomes and student expectations before designing activities that are appropriate.

After finishing at Statesboro, I drove back up to Atlanta - about a 3.5 hour drive. Stayed just south of the airport and made the mistake of not finding a gas station to refill the car before returning it to Avis. They charge about double the standard price for filling it. At that stage I had no choice since the nearest was about 5 miles away - ouch! Ah well, just have to roll with it.

Saturday morning saw me back at the airport, a flight to Chicago - what an immense airport O'Hare is, looked like about 3 parallel huge airfields - then transfer to a 40-minute flight to Indianapolis. From Indy it was just a slog on the freeway (I70) across into Ohio, and Zanesville was as far as I got before giving in for the night. One thing I've noticed is that the road-kill is much bigger here. Much of it is unrecognisable (strangely), but I have seen deer and racoons. The deer in particular must make quite a mess of a car as well.

An excellent night's sleep finally, so feel quite refreshed for the drive across to Washington DC. Will deviate from the I70 later in the day to come at Washington from the West, so I can stay in Fairfax.