Hawaii in July, anyone?

The opening ceremony of The Learner conference in 2011. 

Why not? I think Hawaii would be a perfect place for an academic conference but the one that is held there regularly is in January and that is a difficult time for Academics from South Africa to attend due to the fact that the funding would be allocated from the previous years’  budget on the one hand and there is also the air traffic issues at that time of year – too close to the holiday season which means the tickets are expensive and hard to get what you want and also the possibility of snow and delays at major airports. So why not go in July if the opportunity presents itself?

In 2017, the 24^th International Conference of Learning will be held in Hawaii form 19 to 21 July. This is one of the Common Ground conferences which I personally can recommend. I attended two Learner conferences and they were excellently planned and well attended. The 2011 Learner conference in Mauritius was simply one of my favourites (because we managed to also make a lovely vacation of the time spend on the beautiful west coast of this island – just to make sure we could take awesome photos of the sunset over the sea). 

One aspect of these conferences I like very much is the variety of tracks that are presented. Next year, there will once again be 10 tracks under the special focus theme of ‘New media for new learning’. The learner conference is only one of about 24 research networks linked to Common Ground, and additional to the conferences, there are also a n impressive list of international journals and books which provide publishing opportunities.

The call for papers as well as registration is already open with good early payment discounts available. Conference registration costs USD550 and there is also discounted hotel accommodation available at Waikiki beach. The conference venue is the University of Hawaii in Honolulu. The conference organizers are also arranging a selection of optional activities and tours to ensure that delegates do not only have to focus on academic work while on this lovely and interesting island.  ​