While I am looking forward to learn something about what went on at the ASTD Conference in Washington last week (no transcripts or recordings are available on the official site) let me point your attention to another interesting event, for which you don't need to travel but can simply join by using your personal computer. Called e/merge 2004 this is the first virtual conference on "blended collaborative learning". The terms refer to everything relating to "training environments" where there is a mixture of online and face-to-face interaction. e/merge 2004 takes place over 2 weeks, from Monday 28 June to Saturday 10 July. Presentations to be delivered at this conference have been grouped into four themes: The Big Picture, Case Studies, Learning Communities and Learning Environments. Among the great speakers and presenters, Nancy White will be delivering her Online Facilitation Workshop: The Heartbeat of Online Groups with Tony Carr of the Multimedia Education Group at the University of Cape Town, while Greig Krull and Brenda Mallinson of Rhodes University will be presenting their Workshop on Learning Objects, Metadata and Learning Object Repositories.