Narrative and Interactive Learning Environments conference in Edinburgh 8-11 August 2006. Finally, I get round to blogging about my first academic conference as a research student.

It must be said that this wasn’t the most obvious choice, even though interactive learning environments are my subject area. Narratives is a bit left field for me, but it looked fun, and it was in Edinburgh when the festival was on, and it happened to be in a week when I already had childcare sorted. Also, it looked kind of quirky, which appealed to me.

General thoughts? Should have taken the laptop, then I could have blogged as the conference went on. Kept thinking of things I wanted to blog, and I’ve ended up saving them for a couple of weeks till I’m back at the computer at work. Must take the password for this blog home with me 🙂

Great idea to go to Edinburgh during festival week, though it would have been more sensible to arrange to stay for a couple more days and get the benefit – we kept rushing past exciting events without ever really connecting.

Narratives. Not really my thing. They seem to be all over the place and very few people had bothered to define them. I think there’ more to narratives than linking a few things together, but obviously other people disagree.

Giving papers. Always give a paper at a conference. Unless, you’re so well known that everyone knows who you are and what you’re working on. Otherwise you have to explain your work umpteen times, and keep wearing the name badge.

Networking. Met a lot of interesting people, but it would have been more useful to meet a few who were roughly in the same ball park as me.