Thursday 22nd in New Zealand

G'day,


I awoke from a good nights sleep ready to pack and leave the south island to fly to Wellington. The people at the home stay gave me a lift to the airport before jumping on the plane for a short journey to Wellington. I say short journey but it was quite a bumpy ride due to a lot of wind travelling over the water and sometimes felt like the plane was travelling sideways.
We eventually landed and I collected my bags, I now needed to look for Matt O'Mara from Wellington City Council, with only a picture to work with I wondered round the airport. It was however Matt who found me first and we jumped in a taxi to hotel Ibis where I would be staying to drop my bags off.

Then back at Wellington City Council I was able to meet the manager of web content and discovered they use Silverstripe as a content management system and have various e-services such as e-petitions and e-payments. I then moved on to look at GIS and the different map views such as 3D or 2D and scenery such as park view or road view. I was also able to see the e-learning at Wellington used to train their employees, both the face to face training and online learning using Kallidus.

I had a great time at Wellington City Council, it was good to see the technology in the capital and meet new people. Afterwards Matt invited me round to his house for dinner, which was a really kind gesture and it really helped me to feel at home. The food was lovely and everyone was great. After food and chats I went back to my hotel for some sleep and I will see you tomorrow.........

Thursday 15th in Australia

G'day,

Not long to go before New Zealand but today I have a very busy day visiting people in Penrith and Parramatta.

In the morning I met with Kathie Goldsworthy at the University of Western Sydney to discuss the e-learning taking place there. We talked about the content management system in place and different plug ins such as the lecture recorder. This was very interesting as unlike the UK, Australian Councils do not oversee education so it was great to see some e-learning in action.

I then went to meet Richard Hawkins, the web co-ordinator at Penrith Council. Richard showed me the content management system in place there and the issues he is facing. I was also shown the e-services in place before going to lunch, I had the steak sandwich and chips (if anyone was wondering).

I then quickly moved on to meet Professor Peter Phibbs at the Urban Research Centre. Peter helped me arrange my visits today and we had a quick chat about my trip and about my favourite sport, Rugby League (I support Bradford Bulls if anyone was wondering again).

I then returned to Sydney and as it is the last chance I will get to have a few beers I went out for a bit, tomorrow I will be visiting Sydney Downtown Council and packing my bags ready for NZ. See you there..........