In retrospect, I suppose I had a mixed ALT-C 2007 experience this year in comparison to last year. There were less presentations around 3D simulations and gaming than I was hoping for outside of the Eduserv Foundation booth (very nice set of moo cards that I collected but unfortunately no-one there or free to talk when I was around). I enjoyed Dan Livingstone’s presentation on Integrating Mooodle and Second Life which talked common sense and made mention of Open Croquet) which I’ll be looking into but I failed to hook up with him in person. Ditto Steve Wheeler. A bit difficult to find people when there are over 500 delegates so i’ll be falling back on good old email.

My favourite workshop was by Dr Catherine Howell of the University of Cambridge Runaway Objects : Preserving Our Digital Belongings which raised some really interesting questions around personalisation, identity and privacy and got me thinking – if only more of the presentations I attended (including mine) could have reached the standard of this one I would have approached my six hour train journey home happier. Visit the Wetpaint Wiki for this session.

This session unfortunately coincided with the Web 2.0 Slam which I would have liked to attend. As with a lot of conferences with numerous streams, most of the presentations you’d like to attend are on at the same time so you miss quite a few that you’d like to see. Such is life…..

Finally, back in sunny Dorset, I was able to catch the Peter Norvig Keynote via Elluminate Live!. The sound dropped out occasionally but besides that one gripe it was a handy way to catch up on an interesting viewpoint (I’m not sure how long this will be accessible for) and a solid session to end the conference on.