VUSSC/Trinidad and Tobago Boot Camp/Day 1 summary

Monday 4th June, 2007
Facilitator: Ceronne Prevatt-Wiltshire

Morning Session
The Opening Ceremony for the Life Skills Boot Camp was held at the Centre for Language Learning and Critical Thinking, University of the West Indies (UWI) St Augustine, Trinidad & Tobago. The entertainment provided by the steel pan and the string quartet as well as the decor in the auditorium radiated a very warm Caribbean welcome as well as the We were honoured to have Sir John Daniel, the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Commonwealth of Learning address the gathering. He gave a very clear presentation on the formulation of VUSSC; the countries represented; as well as the expectations during and following the Boot Camp. The Boot Camp was declared open by Rita Portillo, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Science, Technology & Tertiary Education, and the local host. She noted that this event was rather timely since Trinidad & Tobago had been making great strides in the area of Life Skills. The Ministry had made available the Life Skills material developed locally as resource material for this Boot Camp exercise.

Afternoon Session
The afternoon began with the introduction of participants. This was done along geographic lines, the Pacific region, Africa and then the Caribbean. Participants were asked to state their expectations of the Boot Camp as well as how they anticipated contributing to the exercise. The next session conducted by Ceronne Prevatt-Wiltshire, outlined the group task, the time-table, and the division of the working groups for the next two and a half week This was followed by an informative session on Copyright, by Paul West, which generated much discussion. The final session of the day was on Wiki Skills, this was conducted by Phillip Serracino Inglott