Sunday, May 14, 2006
Home again and back at work
Despite the weather, which is complete crap - rain and hail and a high of 14deg C - it's great to be back home. Great to see the family again and even nice to be back at work, although the reality of tasks and projects will soon bite.
Getting home was a 34 hour process, starting with a 4am rise in Indianapolis to catch my 6am flight - first to Chicago and then to San Francisco. From the SF airport I found the airbus to the BART, which took me to the connecting station for the CalTrain, and from there is was a university shuttle to central Stanford campus. My meeting with Helen Chen was very enjoyable. She has a vibrant and enthusiastic interest in the use of e-portfolios, and has done some longitudinal studies on student reactions over a full degree period. I will be endeavouring to keep in contact with Helen as I attempt to digest the information from this trip. She is a leading figure in EPAC - Electronic Portfolios Action & Communication International (not to be confused with the European Particle Accelerator Conference), which hosts online events relating to e-portfolios. She suggested I might like to participate as a presenter in one of these, which is an opportunity I intend to work towards.
After the meeting I had time to stroll around the Stanford campus a little. Very few students around at this time of the year, so an opportunity to see some of this fabulous campus at leisure. The chapel feels more like it belongs in some medieval European town - magnificently restored after being mostly destroyed by the 1906 earthquake, then damaged again in the 1990's.
The rest of the campus seemed to shout of the immense resources of a prestige university like this. The experimental use of technology in teaching made me feel quite envious, and I didn't even get to compare their football stadium with that of University of Georgia. I did get to spend a bit of time in the Stanford shopping mall on my way back to the station - went into the Macy's but didn't think I'd be admitted to the Cartier's or the Tiffany's. I guess the students have Daddy's AmEx, which I don't.
The final journey home was simply a 13-hour ordeal sitting in a plane, but that too passes. By the time I got to bed at about 8pm Saturday I'd been up for 48 hours with just a few hours sleep on the plane. No wonder it's taking me a few days to get properly back on my feet.
Despite the weather, which is complete crap - rain and hail and a high of 14deg C - it's great to be back home. Great to see the family again and even nice to be back at work, although the reality of tasks and projects will soon bite.
Getting home was a 34 hour process, starting with a 4am rise in Indianapolis to catch my 6am flight - first to Chicago and then to San Francisco. From the SF airport I found the airbus to the BART, which took me to the connecting station for the CalTrain, and from there is was a university shuttle to central Stanford campus. My meeting with Helen Chen was very enjoyable. She has a vibrant and enthusiastic interest in the use of e-portfolios, and has done some longitudinal studies on student reactions over a full degree period. I will be endeavouring to keep in contact with Helen as I attempt to digest the information from this trip. She is a leading figure in EPAC - Electronic Portfolios Action & Communication International (not to be confused with the European Particle Accelerator Conference), which hosts online events relating to e-portfolios. She suggested I might like to participate as a presenter in one of these, which is an opportunity I intend to work towards.
After the meeting I had time to stroll around the Stanford campus a little. Very few students around at this time of the year, so an opportunity to see some of this fabulous campus at leisure. The chapel feels more like it belongs in some medieval European town - magnificently restored after being mostly destroyed by the 1906 earthquake, then damaged again in the 1990's.
The rest of the campus seemed to shout of the immense resources of a prestige university like this. The experimental use of technology in teaching made me feel quite envious, and I didn't even get to compare their football stadium with that of University of Georgia. I did get to spend a bit of time in the Stanford shopping mall on my way back to the station - went into the Macy's but didn't think I'd be admitted to the Cartier's or the Tiffany's. I guess the students have Daddy's AmEx, which I don't.
The final journey home was simply a 13-hour ordeal sitting in a plane, but that too passes. By the time I got to bed at about 8pm Saturday I'd been up for 48 hours with just a few hours sleep on the plane. No wonder it's taking me a few days to get properly back on my feet.
// posted by Mark Northover @ 3:41 PM 
