Making the leap: Sharing learnings with others

Every year the Sciences and Technologies of Learning (SLT) Research Fest invites the community of researchers and practitioners in the sciences and technologies of learning to come together to exchange ideas, showcase work, form new collaborations, and catch up on recent innovations in learning and knowledge technology research.

This was my first time attending such an event and presenting a poster to boot! Needless to say, I was a tad nervous. My colleagues were very encouraging and said that the Research Fest has a very inclusive, accepting atmosphere and would be a perfect place for first-time presenters.

There were two-time slots with half the posters being presented in each. At my time-slot, I nervously stood a little way back from my poster and finally plucked up the courage to ask someone who’d been staring at my poster for a while if he had any questions….

And that’s all it took. It was great!

He was so enthusiastic about the research and shared how he wants to do something similar and I realised I had absolutely no trouble talking about the research that Lucy Blakemore and I had been analysing for the better part of a year as we’re very passionate about it. From then, my confidence grew and I really enjoyed talking to all the researchers that came across my poster, in fact, they couldn’t come around fast enough!

It was a really uplifting experience to also walk around and check out everyone else’s posters and the research that they were doing. All were really happy to talk through their work and what they had done so far to improve learning and I left glad to be a part of this community.

I wholeheartedly recommend to anyone thinking about presenting their work to take the leap. You might surprise yourself!

To download a copy of the poster that I presented – Sydney Research Fest poster