Meeting new people

My day began at 9:30 as I attended a session entitled "USING VIDEO TO PRESENT RESEARCH: CASE STUDY OF "THE VOICE" FOR TEACHERS COLLEGE RECORD.  The young woman, Melanie Hibbert who presented the research is from Columbia University.  I met her last night and we were conversing about the variations in culture from one country to another.  I found her research very interesting as she discussed the technology used at her university that allows one to imbed a video clip about their research within the webpage that discusses their work. The picture below shows myself, Melanie and Paula, an attendee from Canada. 



I also attended a session enttitled "WHAT NOW? WHAT NEXT? A NARRATIVE ANALYSIS OF CROSS-CULTURAL ADAPTATION AND COLLEGE STUDENT RETENTION.  As some of you may know I am a student senator for the university and retention is a major focus for our university and many other institutions.  The work was presented by Dr. Jason Martin with whom I spoke with after his presentation.  His work consisted of monitoring 245 students in a curriculum and communications course via writing samples.  Of his many statements, he hypothesized that maintenance of on campus student activities throughout the semester may aid in student satisfaction and resulting retention.










I also attended a session entitled "HOW TO INTRODUCE SERVICE LEARNING IN THE 21ST CENTURY DESIGN EDUCATION" in which Dr. V. Jani discussed her struggles with creating and implementing service learning projects involving architectural design.  She helped her students create housing for Habitat for Humanity and for those affected by Hurricane Katrina.  She also helped her students with architectural design projects to create housing to benefit those in her local community.  She faced multiple barriers including local government officials enforcement of new initiatives that were not sufficient in solving the problems at hand. 

In total I was able to attend 10 different sessions  today. Everyone that I encountered was very sociable and friendly. When I discussed my research with others I was often asked if I was a Ph.D.  I was taken back by their comments and they were quite shocked when I explained that I was an undergraduate student.    I was able to  network with individuals from Canada, New Zealand, Kansas and Spain today.  It was quite a relief to realize that individuals in other countries are also struggling with introducing technology into education and are facing many of the same barriers.

Tomorrow we leave at 9:30 for a sightseeing tour of Madrid!  We have also planned an afternoon trip to the Prado museum as well as a few other must see locations in the city.