www.project-re.wetpaint.com

Joan McArthur-Blair gave an incredible and highly motivating keynote to kick the conference off. As she says “Education is all that matters.” It really was amazing and set a great tone for the week.

Joan's inspirational Keynote

For the rest of the morning and the afternoon sessions we split into smaller groups and went over some of the foundations of the Instructional  Skills Workshop for those people who have not yet taken it. Most of the facilitators I spoke to thought it went well, and participants took useful things away.

In the afternoon we went to the Museum of Islamic Art. Obviously the first thing you notice is the building once again the external architecture was awe inspiring.

Museum of Islamic Art

The interior was no different.

Museum of Islamic Art - Interior

The Museum is set out on an artificial island and looks towards Doha’s Downtown core.

Doha Skyline

The fountain that echos the dome

And like everywhere else no expense is spared finding interesting rocks to use as facing stone. Rock hounding in Qatar is pretty simple, as demonstrated by the lovely and capable Stu.

Rock hounding is easy in Qatar.

Of course the displays were wonderful too. From precious jeweled creatures,

To elegant daggers,

Ornate Daggers

To intricate designs,

And wonderful astrolabes.

After the Museum we went to one of the Souqs (markets) where I was fleeced on various items (Bartering is fun). I didn’t take many pictures at  the souq as there were many people, but here is an interesting empty corridor.

Souq corridor

This Souq was actually torn down then rebuilt to look the same using modern methods (and wiring, directly above this photos is a 360 survelience camera). It is still tiny, cramped and stuffed with items.

Tomorrow’s conference sessions will be the concurrent workshops offered by 20 or so facilitators. I’m looking forward to that. It will be nice to see if I’ve timed my session well. Talk to you later.

Cheers,

Brett

One day left until the conference. All of the wayward sheep from the advisory council are here now.

Today at CNAQ we did a little more prep, discussed lesson plans with a few of the other facilitators, and then went and toured some of the facilities. We saw a giant zombie attacking the institution (the model of the university was very cool. You could switch the lights in each building on and off. Helpful for finding your bearings).

After this we did a quick drive through education city (the place many foreign universities have satillite campuses. We saw the incredible new national convention centre (the one with the awesome tree root like structures out front) and several other cool buildings. The architecture here is jaw dropping.

We also saw several examples of the national bird. The crane of course.

Cranes

The worlds largest shopping cart.

The largest Shopping Cart

The flame tower for the 2006 Asian games (They lit it by having someone ride a horse to the top during a thunderstorm).

2006 Asian Games Flame

And another Mall (though this one makes up for it by having a venetian theme, a canal, and gondola rides. Yes, really. The gondola poles have no end, work as a tiller, and have a little electric on off switch on for thrust. Yes I am disappointed I didn’t get to ride. ).

Ahh... Venice

But I digress, tomorrow morning will be Joan’s keynote and then we’ll split into those smaller groups for the afternoon. Maybe I’ll have to stop posting vaction photos then (unlikely).

Cheers,

Brett

On the first day we’ll be breaking the conference into smaller groups (probably less than 10 groups of no more than 20 people). We have several things planned for the 3 hours of these sessions. Notably, characteristics of effective learning, learning objectives, and lesson planning. If you are interested in our plans Carol says we will be sharing the resources later, when I find out where I’ll post a link.

Cheers,

Brett

PS “Don’t they know it’s Friday?” is a great book.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dont-Friday-Cross-Cultural-Considerations-Business/dp/186063074X

Tornado Building

Carol and Stu at CNAQ

More funky buildings

Smrat like tree

We’re all starting to trickle in here in Doha. I’m getting pretty excited, this is going to be a lot of fun!

I arrived last night. I must admit that night and day don’t have a lot of meaning right now. It was 20 hours of travel time from Vancouver, I’d complain about it more, but I got upgraded to business class on the Vancouver/London leg. That made the first  8 hours very very amusing (Read: I  spent a lot of time laughing out loud. I suspect this would have disturbed people, but those pod seats give great privacy. Super villains take note; perfect for those who tend towards maniacal laughter ). If you find yourself in that position, I recommend the dungeness crab, very tasty. (Here’s a picture)

Cheers,

Brett

Jeanie

Doha City, Qatar

Welcome to the ISW’s conference blog!  We will be posting news, updates and exciting information from the conference in Qatar here soon.  Stay tuned for updates!