I spent yesterday at the public open day of the Handheld Learning 2008 conference and the awards ceremony in the evening.  We decided to miss out on paying for conference coffee and met with James Clay for a good cup of Italian in a nearby cafe – which James being James, photographed!  Most of the afternoon we spent in a session called Pecha Kucha.  This was an open session for anyone who had a presentation that met with very strict criteria and wanted share their ideas with the room.  Each presenter was given a number and then the numbers were drawn out of a hat to establish a running order.  The rules of the presentations were – each is allowed 20 images which are to be shown for 40 seconds only,  so each presentation lasts 6 minutes and 40 seconds.  It encourages presenters to be concise, keeps the interest level high and encourages collaboration and sharing of work.  It worked really well and made for a good and interactive afternoon – something I think we might use at our own conference.

In the evening it was the Handheld Learning Awards.  This is the first year they have done this and a panel of judges had chosen 3 candidates for shortlisting in each category, Primary, Secondary, Tertiary and special needs. The vote was then done by text messaging which was a bit limiting – a choice of methods would have been better.  I was expecting a sort of low key type event with some polite applause – not at all.  There was a live band, champagne on arrival and some really good food.  Johnny Ball, the host was witty and entertaining and it was good to see Andy Black networking furiously.  The whole evening was great and we ended up dancing till late.  It was with a heavy heart I left this morning as I have work to do and couldn’t stay for the whole conference – which if it is as good as last year and last night will be great.  I’ll be there next year I promise.  In the meantime, I’m following them all on jaiku.  So well done Graham and the Handheld team – it was fab.