July started with a few days well earned rest; following the ICED 2010 conference in Barcelona, I stayed on in Spain, but went down to the coast to a lovely fishing village called L’Escala – good weather, good food, good scenery, good company, just excellent! Back at work and July was partially filled with teaching and tutorials on the taught doctoral programme’s summer study schools. I also presented in two sessions at the HECU5 conference in Lancaster (see ‘Conference’ page of this website for details and photographs). Finally the month ended with our Social Work award board, always a really satifying culmination of a year of everyone’s hard work; students, tutors and support staff – great to see so many students progressing really well and others graduating having achieved so much, professionally and personally, over the period of their studies.
June 2010 has been an amazing month. I have had the good fortune to present papers at two international conferences. The first was the International Joint World Conference on Social Work and Social Development held in Hong Kong. I presented a joint paper with a colleague (details on my publications page) and met with some wonderful people too. It was a huge conference, more than 3,000 people! There were almost too many papers and events to choose from, so it whilst it was stimulating and interesting, it was also very tiring 
Hong Kong was extremely warm and humid throughout the few days that I was there. Here are a couple of photographs taken at the conference venue,
Shortly after getting back from Hong Kong, I went to Barcelona, where I presented at the International Confederation of Educational Developers conference ICED 2010. This was a smaller conference held in a university in Barcelona, again, though there were many very thought provoking papers and workshops to attend. Weatherwise, more very hot, sunny days, but with much less humidity than in Hong Kong. So, a couple more photographs
As if that was not enough travelling for one month, I also had a short visit to Ireland to commence the data collection work on the evaluation project I mentioned in last month’s blog. All in all, this month, my feet have hardly touched the ground … literally!
I am writing this right at the end of the month – I seem to have packed lots into the last few weeks as ever. I have been to London twice, once for a conference launching the final report of the Learning Landscapes research project, which has been an exciting research study looking at the ways in which academics work with colleagues in estates and other key stakeholders to develop and manage innovation in the design of teaching and learning spaces in Higher Education; the study has been led by colleagues at Lincoln and I have done a small part to support the work (i am even credited in the final report, which is nice). The second visit to London was for a meeting of the SEDA Scholarship, Research and Evaluation Committee. I did have a few days annual leave over the Easter period, which offered a welcome break. We didn’t go away, but enjoyed some day trips in beautiful sunshine. The book chapters continue to progress, and as I write this I am steeped in marking, which will keep me busy for some days yet!
