ALT it ain't - highs n lows of Educause06

I'm always fascinated by the sheer logistics of this event - 7,500 people in one place but no queues for meals and refreshments, 2 minute registration process and never a rush to get from session to session (although end to end in the conference centre must be at least 10 miles!). Call for papers for next year is in your conference bag, nice little "session at a glance" thingy and in the last day handover next year's organising chair announced all three confirmed keynote speakers - not something we see very often in the UK....Anyway highs and lows:

Highs

• Ray Kurzweil and his Dave-Gorman-esque graphs
• Bryan Alexander (obviously....)
• Best parallels - Duke, Penn State
• Partying & Presidents with Andrew Rosen et al at the W Monday night
• The grassy knoll and the associated gift shop
• Catching up with Melissa Anderson over double chocolate chip frappuchino

Lows

• Vinton Cerf (zzzzzz)
• Bb Town Hall meeting - cheated out of my fix of Chasen cos of damned patent law
• Flat parallels - the eCore one (notice, I haven't even been able to write about it)
• Going back to the W Tuesday night - big mistake!
• Dallas - least Starbucks per square mile in the known universe and not much else either
• Liz and her flipping aquarium fixation, "oh look, here we are again"

Everyones talking about

• google youtube purchase, google Bb partnership, google digitisation project, google boy billionnaires, google plans, google value, google power, google, google, google, google...
• social bookmarking and information fluencies
• supporting scalable innovations (not one size fits all, but also not "special delicate flowers" to be nurture at all cost)
• assessment, accreditation, outcomes, measurement
• the world in your mobile phone

No-ones talking about

• plagiarism detection & right to privacy (a bit of an obsession last year)
• blogs and wikis (although everyone is doing it)
• clickers (been and gone...)
• Matthew Pittinsky (he was there, but sort of not)
• "why can't this conference be more like ALT-C"

Overall a good conference and loads more to tell you about when I see you all - oh yes, be very afraid...