Posted by Jeff on Dec 1, 2008 in
Travel I’ve gotten somewhat settled here in China. My luggage did not make it with me initially, but I’ve finally got them now. The hotel here in Beijing is very nice, and has good wired Internet (yay!) so I’ve been uploaded virtually all of the photos I took in Australia to my .Mac (er…umm… ‘.Me’) account. It still chunking away because I’m uploading the full sized versions so that I know I have a 2nd copy not with me here in case of disaster. A number of the albums are up, and more are uploading while I type. Since this is an “unfiltered” set of photos, some may not be great or duplicative.
Photos
Edited: 8:10 am Beijing time: photos should all be uploaded and available.
Tags: Hobart, Melbourne, Sydney, Travel
Posted by Jeff on Nov 28, 2008 in
Travel Another pair of night city skyline and sunrise photos from Melbourne. Taken Wednesday night and Thursday morning.
Tags: Melbourne, Travel
Posted by Jeff on Nov 27, 2008 in
Education Wednesday was the end of the VITTA conference. I met a teacher and a pair of students from a school in Victoria province who use Studwiz and the Studywiz Mobile Interface. They did a short presentation at the tail end of my presentation. Unfortunately, our session room was about the size of a dorm room (I think it was a dorm room…really…) and the attendees numbered no more than 5 or 6. On a positive note, 2 of them were members of Victoria’s State Department of Education team. One of them I had met the day previous in my meeting with the Victorian DOE. That at least shows that the conversation we had struck a chord.
Later that day, Geoff and I went to visit the Coberg Senior School. The school’s Principal Don met us and gave us the tour. They are fortunate to have a chance to rebuild not only their school culture but their facilities to match. Listening to Don speak about their school, its operation, goals, and attitudes, he might as well work for MLTI. It was a very good meeting, and nice to see others who see the role of school and the role of technology in school in the same light as we do in MLTI.
Tags: Melbourne, VITTA
Posted by Jeff on Nov 25, 2008 in
Travel Monday and Tuesday were full of meetings and presentations. I won’t give you the blow-by-blow of each meetings, but they went well and included a senior advisor to the Deputy Premier and a group from the Victorian state education department. I also opened up the Principal’s strand for the VITTA conference with a presentation about MLTI.
I’ve not really badly jet lagged, but I have been waking up before sunrise and falling asleep with the lights on…meaning, I don’t remember when I decided to go to bed, but I awoke at about 1:30 AM and the lights were still on. But it has given me the chance to take a few photos of sunrise and the night skyline of Melbourne.
Sunrise in Melbourne
Melbourne skyline in the morning
Melbourne Skyline at night
Tags: Melbourne, Travel, VITTA
Posted by Jeff on Nov 23, 2008 in
Travel 
Australian Flag
Arrived in Melbourne pretty well rested and ready to go. I managed to sleep relatively well on the flight over, so aside from waking up at about 5 am local time, my clock is relatively localized. Met up with Geoff Elwood and his wife Cecelia and we strolled around downtown Melbourne to get some fresh air and stretch out my legs.
The area in general reminds me, oddly, of San Francisco. I think its a combination of the eucalyptus trees and the architecture of some of the homes. There are a lot of homes that have what I always called “Spanish” homes. Not sure of the official terms, but like SF, there seems to be a number of homes with tile roofs, and stucco walls.
Downtown as seen from my hotel room
We took a tourist detour and visited the tallest building in the city. The 88th floor of the Eureka Skydeck is set up with viewing areas that overlook the city. The space was designed to make you feel like you were up high and even falling off the building. Some of the floors were angled toward the windows so you were leaning forward as you looked out the windows. The walls and floors also had ticker-tape style LEDs that scrolled words that always flowed outward toward the windows.
Melbourne Park
One bit was an outdoor deck where you could take a look out over the river and the Melbourne Park where the Australian Open Tennis Championships are played. Next door is another stadium for Australian rules football and Cricket.
Geoff and I also “experienced” the EDGE. Turned out (no surprise) to be an overpriced tourist attraction. The EDGE is a glass floored room that extends off the edge of the building so that you can look down 88 stories to the ground. Complete with “sound effects” and “a light show”. I have no photos because they wouldn’t let you take pictures in the EDGE so that they could take pictures of you and try and sell them back to you.
Downtown Melbourne next to the Yarra river.
Tags: Melbourne, Travel
