Off to the 2010 ePortfolios Australia conference in Melbourne

I am very excited about going to Melbourne today to attend the 2010 ePortfolios Australia Conference. I will be giving a presentation about my experiences as a health professional having an ePortfolio in the 'cloud'.

To ePortfolio or not to ePortfolio...that is the question?!
Hopefully, it's going to be a very useful conference because there is currently a lot of discussion about how ePortfolios could and should be implemented at Otago Polytechnic. The argument about whether an ePortfolio should be encased in an institution-owned system like Mahara or Pebble Pad continues to rage. So I am looking forward to finding out what people think, and what experiences other educators and researchers have had.

Catching up online friends and colleagues
One of the things I am looking forward to meeting people that I know through my online networks such as Carole McCulloch and Alison Miller. Both women I have met online through networks such as Twitter, so it will be great to see them face-to-face.

I am also really looking forward to meeting Jo-Anne McShane again. Jo-Anne is a nurse in Brisbane who is looking at ePortfolios for her Masters degree. We met briefly earlier in the year and I "encouraged" her to put in an abstract to this conference. It will be my pleasure to facilitate her presentation on Thursday. This very short collaboration came about purely via email and Twitter...another success for online networking.

The joys of Melbourne
Apart from all the professional hob-nobbing I'll be doing, I am also really excited about meeting Pam Harnden again. Pam is another one of my Twitter buddies and used to be one of my post-graduate midwifery students. Pam is taking me to the Titanic exhibition which I am really looking forward to. I'm sure we'll go shopping at Victoria Market and drink lots of beautiful Australian wine...I cannot wait!