I was honoured to be asked to do a keynote at the 2nd Congresso Mundial de E-Learning sponsored by the Universidad National Aberta y a Distance (Columbia’s Open University). The conference was held in one of the oldest and perhaps most well maintained historic ports of the Spanish Main.
The Congresso started 90 minutes late, because the Internet connection to that part of the town was severed by tram construction. I thought at first that this was pretty odd to hold up a F2F conference for the Internet, not realizing that they had a few hundred paying registrants online and in Second Life. But I found that time-lines aren’t really hard in Columbia anyways!
There were about 900 delegates and they all seemed to know the words to the stirring martial music of the National anthem, the state anthem and UNAD school anthem. Someone I can’t imagine a stirring, trumpet filled anthem (with everyone singing) at a Canadian University event (do any of our Universities even have anthems??). Next came the official greetings by the Mayor and various Ministry officials. I was quite thrilled to be given the keys to the City (literally a big brass key!!) but I didn’t manage to find any banks or chests of Spanish doubloons to which the key would fit.Read More