I recently returned from the BbWorldEurope09 Conference . The full programme and details can be viewed here:
http://www.bbworld.com/2009/Europe/content.asp?id=1453 

From my own personal point of view, here are  the highlights.

• The demonstration of the Open Source e-Learning tool – XERTE - by Gill Fourt and Pat Lockley from The University of Nottingham. Here  is an online tour of the tool. A simple e-Learning tool to use, very enthusiastically delivered by Pat
• The explanation and demonstration of Yorkshare by Wayne Britcliffe and Richard Walker. The way in which they have developed this area and the high standard of presentation is a leading example to many HE VLEs
• Trevor Batchelor (Uni of Birmingham), Adrian L. Powell (Uni of Sheffield), Susannah J. Quinsee (City Uni London) and Vicki Simpson (Uni of Surrey) spoke about the move from Bb Vista to Bb 8 or 9 and how each of their institutions are approaching this move. Most of the HEIs have taken the opportunity to review what the institutions currently provides and evaluate their staff needs for the immediate future.
• John Couperthwaite and Rob Jones (University of Birmingham) explained and demonstrated thier use of the lecture capture software, Echo360. A clear and engaging explanation of thier work to date, similar to that we have done at Newcastle University. Good to see John login live to the system, always a big plus in my book. They have used the system to capture lectures on an ad hoc basis and again as was our experience students find the resource extremely useful and lecture attendance has hardly decreased.

A great opportunity to visit the city of Barcelona and meet some of the Catalan people. A shame I didn’t get the chance to see more of it.