So, let's quickly gloss over the inept staff, extortionate pricing and exceptional tardiness of the nation's rail service  and focus immediately on the two conferences I attended last week, namely the IITT's 'Training 2010' conference at the Marriott Grosvenor Square in London, and the ALT conference at the East MIdlands Conference Centre in Nottingham.

At both conferences there was of course a heavy focus on IT and learning technologies, (despite the upcoming rebranding of the IITT to expand its remit beyond just Information Technology Training) with the ALT clearly focussed on technological design and implementation within education, and with perhaps what felt like an apparent -yet unspoken- cynicism around the new 'autonomy' offered by David Willetts, the innovation minister for the BIS.

At the IITT we had a double dose of the charismatic Bob Mosher, with a one-two of a Tuesday afternoon opener about building truly Blended Learning courses followed by the following morning keynote, 'Delivering excellence in performance and learning'. It's impossible not to be engaged watching Bob Mosher talk, such is his enthusiasm and energy for a subject in which he manages to apply parallels with every aspect of working life, providing an essential inclusivity to his delivery of any subject.

Next, to tie in with the upcoming monthly themes on TZ I opted to sit in on the 'B Stream' lectures of the day which were all about 'delivering learning' as opposed to 'leading learning'. Clive Shepherd of the Elearning network and Nick Shackleton-Jones of the BBC both gave speeches about the practicalities of engagement, how different media are appropriate for different audiences, and perhaps most crucially, the importance of informal learning. The afternoon session saw Julie Wedgwood and Liz Cable give more practical masterclass-type talks, the first being a run-though of how to conduct successful synchronous online learning and the follow-up a guide to building - and more importantly, sustaining - an online community. I came away from the IITT conference satisfied, feeling both more knowledgeable and also happy to have met several of TrainingZone's collaborators and advocates. A short vox pops of the conference is coming soon to the site. More about the IITT here

At the ALT-C I was coming in at the end of the 3 -day conference so I knew it would be winding up, but with one of the keynote speakers, Barbara Wasson to finish things off on the Thursday afternoon. Sadly she had been taken ill with pneumonia (Barbara we wish you a speedy recovery), but in place was a panel session featuring several speakers and delegates of the past three days answering the question 'if you had to concentrate on activity to initiate a sea change what would it be and why?' then finally fielding questions from floor as well. Haydn Blackley of Glamorgan University gave a particularly impassioned final thought on the need to focus on learners and not budgets, and a similar message was seemingly conveyed by most of the other panellists too. I also got to sit down with Chief Executive of the ALT, Seb Schmoller, for an interview too, the results of which are also soon to be published on TrainingZone. Read about the ALT here

All in all, a success. Just wish I'd done it by car.