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I am delighted to announce that both registration and the call for papers are now live for the 19th Annual Durham Blackboard Users’ Conference.

We are offering a range of pre-conference workshops on the afternoon of Monday the 7th of January, with the main conference on the 8th and 9th. We have managed to secure the Great Hall at Durham Castle again for the conference dinner on the Tuesday night. Kathy Vieira, Blackboard’s Chief Portfolio Officer will be talking at the event. Other keynotes will be announced shortly (after our term starts and life gets back to normal). Follow #durbbu on Twitter for regular updates.

The conference theme is: Fail, Fad or Future? The challenge for learning technologists and lecturers alike is to separate the long-lasting solutions from the lemons. Which tools and approaches should you invest your time, reputation (and money) in? Some will be short-lived fads (think Second Life) some may fail from the start (Sinclair C5) but other might turn out to be the future of learning. How do you tell?  Is it wrong to experiment with a fad or failure? We are encouraging you to submit your stories of using technologies that you think are a fad, a failure or the future and share what you've learnt from doing this. As if that wasn’t enough, we also have two other tracks - Pedagogic Practice and Technical, so we hope that covers everybody.

We have worked hard with Blackboard and sponsors to keep the costs down. The early bird rate is only £140 per person, valid until the end of October. As ever accommodation is a DIY process, though we offer a range of potential venues (including Durham Colleges).

The call for papers closes on the 30th of November, but we’d really appreciate early submissions.

To find out more, follow this link

Hope to see you there in January,

Malcolm.