Why the lack of posts and tweets from WISE 09?
A few people have emailed me to ask why there hasn’t been much communication from me during the conference. There are a couple of reasons. the primary reason is that I’m busy trying to learn as much as I can from as many people that I can. The…
WISE 2009 – Day Two
Good morning from Doha, It’s 0900hrs local time (GMT+3) and I’m well into my second full day in Qatar. Today’s agenda is as follows: 1000 (0200 EasternTime) – depart for conference at Ritz-Carlton1230 (0430EST) – interview with Dr. Abdulla bin Ali Al-Thani, vice-president education of the Qatar Foundation…
Responding to WISE questions from Twitter
@aratisharma asks: anyone recording the presentations?fResponse: Yes, I’m told the panel discussions are recorded. All official media is being uploaded to the Press Room section of the WISE website: http://www.wise-qatar.org/en/newsroom I will keep an eye out for unofficial recordings @davescrivener states: wow, its pretty business heavy and leans…
Canadians at WISE 09
The following list of Canadian delegates to the WISE 09 conference was provided to me. There are many familiar names for those of you who follow Canadian post-secondary education, and a lot of unfamiliar names as well. You may, like me, find the number of people involved with…
First World Innovation Summit for Education – intro post
This is my first post from the World Innovation Summit for Education in Doha, Qatar. As most of my readers are in Canada and the Northeast United States, much of my “live” blogging will be read hours after the events. The time difference between Doha and the Eastern…
Put down your Blackberry and focus on driving
Today, I was crossing the street in Toronto with the right of way at an on-demand streetlight. Luckily, I was paying attention because a person driving an SUV wasn’t.They ran the red-light. Why? Due to the fact they were busy playing with their Blackberry. Guess they didn’t get…
Learning to love the opera
The following article was published in the Arts and Entertainment section of the McMaster Silhouette in June of 2009 Opera, just the word conjures up memories of Looney Tune cartoons with a fat lady singing and a bunch of old men with bad toupees; a false childhood stereotype…
Nervous York students demand gov’t action
Dozens of York University students descended on the Ontario legislature today to demand government intervention to end a nearly month-old strike by York’s teaching assistants, graduate assistants, and contract faculty. See also: Mediator suspends York talks The strike, which began Nov. 6, has left 50,000 students out of…
Canada’s new government and higher education
(My apologies on the shortage of blog posts today – damn essays) Looks like we will have a new government very soon. What could this mean for higher education? At this point, naturally, we don’t know. However, we could see the some changes proposed in Budget 2008 shelved.…
Mediator suspends York talks
The provincial mediator in the York University strike has suspended talks after days of negotiation proved fruitless. The two sides have been meeting since Thursday in the hopes of reaching an agreement. “It’s so disappointing and frustrating for our 50,000 students,” said university spokesperson Alex Bilyk. “The university…