In just a few days, I’ll be making the trek out to the BbWorld conference, meeting this year in Las Vegas. Every year thatI’ve attended BbWorld there is always something good I bring back home, but this year I’m… well, I’m more excited than usual. You see, now that Palomar has our Blackboard Learn system running under Blackboard’s Managed Hosting service, I get to focus on two completely new aspects of our system.

This will be my first time to seriously interact with the MH team, and it will be helpful to put names with faces. Blackboard’s willingness to put their employees “out there” to interact with clients has always struck me as a good way to do business.

Also due to the switch to MH, I won’t feel pressure to attend sessions relating to the server-level administration of our system. So I’ll be able to whole-heartedly focus on pedagogic sessions, rather than feeling like I serve two masters. In the past I’ve brought back some useful pedagogic tidbits; likely my basket will overflow with non-mechanical content this time out.

Of course the most significant benefit of BbWorld is the opportunity to interact with other educators and support staff from other schools; the value of talking things over in the hallways or around the coffee stand simply can’t be overestimated. Too often I feel I’m existing in a silo, but rubbing against so many other motivated people reminds me that “we’re all in this together.” It… helps, to be reminded of that.

In past years I’ve tweeted from BbWorld. A lot. I expect to do so again, so if you’re interested in an up-to-the-moment you can watch the Twitter feed, either my own, or better yet the conference hashtag #BbWorld14.

Finally, I must admit to some avarice; several of the vendors at BbWorld are doing give-aways of iPad minis, and I sure wouldn’t mind coming home with one of those. But, you know, mostly I want the other stuff.