Today I started off in the cool morning with a 4.9 km run in the Gunther Klotz Anlage in Karlsruhe city. I started out down the dark streets and tried to follow the path that my host and his sons had taken me on yesterday. I was close enough that I did not get lost, but I am sure that I did not take the exact same path. My Garmin GPS unit found the required satellites quickly this morning so that I was able to accurately measure my distance.
From 8:30 am to 1 pm I attended the final presentations of the third semester students at the Hochschule Karlsruhe (University of Applied Science) where my host is on the faculty. This week is their final week of the semester. The student teams (which varied in number from two to five students) reported on their documentation projects for the semester. The subjects of their documentation ranged from technology that adds functionality to credit cards allowing the user to use the card as a security device to writing the documentation for a device that measures stress and the documentation for a small pedal-powered vehicle that runs on rails. The teams were comprehensive in th
eir reports and seemed to have completed their work accurately. My German language comprehension was severely tested, but given the familiar context (technical communication themes) I was able to understand much of the reports. I tried to ask questions in English in the Q&A periods following the team presentations and discovered that the students’ English language skills are quite good.One very pleasant surprise was to meet some of the students who had been partners of my students in Minnesota last year in a small collaborative project carried out online. I thanked the Karlsruhe students for their willingness to participate in that pilot.
In the afternoon we traveled by DB (Deutsche Bahn) to Stuttgart to meet with Dr. Michael Fritz, executive director of Tekom, the main professiona
l organization for technical communicators in Europe. Tekom has 6500 members in Germany alone. Professor Jurgen Muthig, my colleague at Hochschule Karlsruhe, is currently serving a three-year term as president.Dr. Fritz gave us an overview of Tekom’s activities, we met some of the Tekom employees, and the we continued our discussion over dinner in Stuttgart. We took time before dinner to watch Barack Obama’s inauguration live from Washington, D.C.
To the left, Dr. Michael Fritz, executive director of TEKOM, in his Stuttgart office, with me and Professor Jurgen Muthig.
sounds like a nice trip so far. i'm glad you got to meet the students you were working with. it is always fun to meet people f2f after working online with them.
ReplyDeletesomething about that old fashioned way of communicating. you know, looking at each and stuff.
Very interesting day. You must be tickled that your Garmin works!
ReplyDelete