Category: Professional Development

Collaboration, Higher Education, Learning Community, Learning Technologies, Professional Development

Course Exploration Continues… (Day 2)

Laura Pasquini

Today was the second half of Exploring the Future of Courses: From Courses to Dis/Course web conference.  There great things to hear & learn about from the 3 sessions:

It is great to engage with others who share the same passion and interest in the EdTech community. Although there was some great exchange today, I did leave the online conference with many questions and thoughts to ponder. After digesting the wealth of information & presentations I will be sure to share more thoughts.

Many thanks to:

  • Martin Weller, George Siemens, and Grainne Conole for initiating the web conference
  • All the presenters who shared their experiences & knowledge
  • And of course, the many participants who contributed to a myriad of discussions & posts

For more follow up discussions check out the Disc09 Moodle.

Learning Community, Learning Technologies, Professional Development

Exploring the Future of Courses

Laura Pasquini

Exploring the Future of Courses: From Course to Dis/Course is a short, online (FREE) conference May 14 & 15, 2009. Anyone is able to join in the session presentations & discussions that delve into the topic of online learning and course content that is shared in Elluminate & in Moodle.

Current course models of development, creation and sharing is in question for our learners. Many challenges and changes to digital technologies will impact how to best design course content.

Today’s presentations included:

Most of the sessions discussed how educators are managing the challenges new technology presents and its effect on current course models, data-driven material and learner needs in a digital.

For those of you who could not attend today, be sure to join in online tomorrow OR catch up with the conversation online. If are not able to tune in live, be sure to follow along in Twitter, Delicious or blogs with the hash tag – #disc09

[The sessions in Elluminate will be recorded and archived shortly.]

Great question posed by George Siemens, towards the end of his presentation, to further ponder:

“What is the vital currency of education in a world where the information cycle is no longer controllable?”


Conference, Higher Education, Learning Technologies, Professional Development

TIDE is Coming In for Developmental Educators

Laura Pasquini

The Technical Institute for Developmental Educators (TIDE) will be held at Texas State San Marcos from July 26-31, 2009.  This is an interesting, hand-on technology workshop sponsored by Texas State University, CRLA and NADE fo higher ed folks interested in utilizing technology in their work.

Those who should attend include:

  • Developmental educators in higher education who want to learn more about how to use technology
  • All expertise are welcome; workshops beginners to advance
  • Both PC and Macintosh platforms will be available
  • Project support for initiatives at respective institutions
  • Opportunity to receive 3 hours of graduate credit or continuing education credit.

There will be at least 6 mini-course sessions (3 hours each) throughout the week, to introduce various learning opportunities with technology and enhance skills.  There will also be daily mentoring group meetings to debrief and support project development.

Conference, Higher Education, Learning Technologies, Professional Development

Campus Technology Conference 2009

Laura Pasquini

Campus Technology Conference

July 27–30, 2009
Boston Convention and Exhibition Center

Reasons to attend:

  1. A New Approach to your Academic Technology Future
  2. Real Information from the Real World
  3. Nonstop Networking Opportunities
  4. Collegial Environment
  5. The American Experience

 

If you can make the conference, I am sure that it would be well worth it.  I know that my professional development budget has been spent, so I will just stay tuned for the archives.  Here are recordings from the 2008 Conference.

For more information & updates be sure to follow @Campus_Tech on twitter.

 

Update:  Just found a FREE Conference from Purdue University if you happen to live close by.  

TEACHING AND LEARNING WITH TECHNOLOGY CONFERENCE
April 21- 22, 2009

Collaboration, Learning Community, Learning Technologies, Professional Development

Supporting Learning & Teaching

Laura Pasquini

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I was introduced to the Lecture Series from KMDI at the University of Toronto from my former U of T colleague.  This series is free and open for live events to the viewing public by creating a log-in ID and password.  The other option would be to check out the Recently Published Events on the ePresence Presentation Portal.

Yesterday’s 2-hour lecture series was on the topic of  “Supporting Learning & Teaching.”  Three Curriculum Learning and Teaching presenters from OISE discussed various topics around this main idea for the viewers.  Here are the presentation topics and a few few notes/thoughts/questions that I had for each:

  1. New Ways of Teaching & Learning with Technology, by Jim Slotta
  2. Digital communication technologies: educational and social practices, by Claire Brett
  3. Technologies for Higher Education, by Jim Hewitt

 Here are some notes & references made during the webcast that caught my ear/eye:

  • The challenges to using technology in education is the evolution and perspective of social online resources.
  • Check out the WISE Project: http://wise.berkeley.edu/
  • Values in Education (Terry Anderson, 2008): Presence, notification, cooperative learning, student modelling, documenting and sharing
  • Technology & learning is understanding HOW to best utilize & embedd these technology resources into education and courses.
  • How do you reconcile the difference between education and cultural purposes of these tools??
  • Social vs. Technical integration; the GRAIL model: GRaduate Student Academic Identity on-Line – to help students see how their research and training is connected to their broader academic experience and relevance to their social life.
  • Higher education learning with powerpoint, clickers, podcasts & wiki:
  • Do students skip class if the lecture is available on podcast?
  • Havard study says NO; students use podcasts for key points in lectures, or could podcasts be used to replace lectures and use the lecture time for more in-depth review of matrial 
  • Clickers: “gateway” technology to expose more lecturers to the great uses of technology in their teaching practice. 
  • Clickers promote learning by: questioning, encourage peer to peer learning, take a vote/poll & discuss results with peers in the class
  • Clicker Results: Increased performance on test, decreased dropout rates & reduced failure rates (10-12% is now down to 4%)
  • Higher education needs to consider utilizing peer instruction/learning instead o f traditional teaching practices
  • MIT are going the way of Blackboard: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/13/us/13physics.html

Overall, these lectures provided a few insights and it is interesting to see what colleagues elsewhere are thinking about learing & teaching with technology.

A few technical notes, that you should keep in mind if you are to partake in these lecture series:

  • distance viewers are able to engage in online chat & questions
  • ensure you have a strong wireless connection for streaming video
  • attach  good set of speakers as the sound quality was low