Second Impressions of AECT 2005

Well, today was my first unofficial day at the conference. I say unofficial day because I didn't actually go to the conference. As the conference sessions are scheduled for Thursday, Friday, and most of Saturday, and since this is my first trip to Disney World and I decided to take my wife with me to share in the experience, we arrived yesterday and took today as a tourist day and spent the day at Epicot.

The unfortunate part of the day was that for reasons unknown to me (historic ones I suppose), the Distance Learning Division scheduled their board meeting for today at 3:30pm to 4:30pm. Now, I was just elected as one of two board members to the Distance Learning Division, so this was a meeting that I was supposed to attend.

While I take my responsibilities as a board member serious (all evidence to the contrary I know), but let's be realistic. For me, that 3:30pm to 4:30pm session was the only thing that would have been on my agenda for the day. If I hadn't taken my wife to the conference with me, I wouldn't have actually left Athens until today and would have arrived sometime after 5:00pm. So, I missed it because she was here, but I would have missed it if she hadn't come with me. So I would have missed it either way.

My problem, and yes I'm having lots of problems with the AECT conference thus far, is that why would this be scheduled for 3:30pm on the day before the conference even starts? I mean, had it even been scheduled for 5:00pm or 6:00pm this evening, I probably would have been able to attend on either account. With Lisa here, we had already completed Epicot by 5:00pm and would have welcomed leaving the theme park for supper before returning for the 9:00pm fireworks and light show. If Lisa wasn't with me, as 5:00pm start time would have ensured that I would have arrived from Athens by then (leaving at 8:00am or 9:00am and assuming a 7.5 to 8.5 hour drive).

Anyway, I think this would have made too much sense. Granted, I didn't know that the meeting was scheduled until after I registered and started scanning the program book. I'm assuming that if my presence was required or even badly needed, someone would have e-mailed me before this week to let me know that the event had been scheduled in the first place.

This entry has been cross-posed in both my blog area at the Overlay and my academic blog (i.e., Breaking into the Academy).

Tags: AECT 2005, AECT, graduate student, graduate students, graduate school, higher education, education