The Rogers center, home to the Blue Jays and one of the many tourist attractions in Toronto where the 27th ICDE conference took place last week 

We just arrived home from the 27th International Council of Distance and online Education (ICDE) conference that was held in Toronto Canada. More than 1500 delegates from 59 countries gathered in the Central Sheraton hotel for the exciting and stimulating conference. 

Make a note  on your planners as the 28th ICDE conference will take place in 2019 in Dublin, with the open and inviting theme of "Transforming lives and societies", of cause through online and distance education. Although this conference is only in two years' time, there will be several other conferences linked to ICDE in a variety of venues coming up, so do check them out.

Totally exhausted and not able to think straight after the flights from Toronto to Dubai and back to Johannesburg, I will not even try to elaborate on the conference today. What I do hope though is that the organizing committee of the next ICDE will include in the program a conference dinner (yes really, we want a conference dinner where we can have fun and network. We do not need two alcoholic drinks - a large number of people did not even finished the first drink - at the welcoming function.

Also, we hope that the wonderful program that we enjoyed in Sun City at the 26 ICDE conference would inspire some entertainment besides the academic menu. So how about a show or a themed dinner or a really creative welcoming function? And another suggestion, how about showing the pictures taken during the conference on the screens during tea and lunch breaks? Lastly, do rank the speakers before the program is set and allocate large enough rooms for well-known speakers (they can all be given priority slots and arrange in such a way that we, the normal  and unknown speakers do not have to compete with these very popular speakers in the same time slots.

Looking forward to the next ICDE conference in Dublin!