After lunch, John Hedberg and I took our hour and twenty minutes on the main stage. John’s message of matching engaging pedagogy with appropriate technology dovetailed with my theme of informal learning.

I contend that the measure of quality education is not so much what happens at school but rather the success of the graduate in life after school. In today’s turbulent environment, that means recognizing informal learning and tools such as blogs and wikis, and learning how to use them.


The next morning, Intel’s Martin Curley gave a great presentation on state-of-eLearning before joining Drs. Hedberg, Bonk, and myself for a ninety-minute panel session (left) on “Global Approaches to Blended Learning” which covered not only blending but also change management, the need for connections with the world outside of school, and follow-up to all of our prior presentations.

In answer to a question about wikis, I called up Wikipedia and found no entry for “Blended Learning.” As our panel explained what Blended Learning meant to them, I created a page on the topic in Wikipedia. (As if to demonstrate wiki behavior, two days later my post was trivialized into nonsense.)

Following lunch, I led a workshop on blogs and wikis. In the panel session, a teacher had come up with a laundry list of why blended learning wouldn’t work. There wasn’t time and the administration didn’t trust online work. In the workshop, doers replaced naysayers; several participants intend to put blogging to use immediately to teach writing English at both the elementary and undergraduate levels.

Cross, Bonk & Hedberg


The beautiful facilities of the Higher College of Technology


Dr. Tayeb Kamali, head of HCT, calm while others race about


Yours truly, holding court

QuickTime video of speakers chatting at the Rotana Beach. 6 MB. Probably not worth it unless you're in the picture.