Earlier this year I received an invitation from colleagues at EDUCAUSE to do featured session on "Doing More with Much Less: Pursuing an Innovative Teaching and Learning Agenda in a Time of Fiscal Austerity" at the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) 2010 Annual Meeting. I am honored to be part of a panel that will take time to talk to the audience about the things we are each doing at our institutions to help continue to push forward even in times of economic turmoil. I plan to spend my time discussing how we've re-evaluated our strategic planning, how we've turned to the community to produce local (and high value) professional development, and how we have leveraged existing IT infrastructure to innovate. I would be lying if I didn't mention that I am a bit intimidated to be a part of a panel like this and hope I can hold my own with my fellow panelists. From the program:
Supporting an innovative program for teaching and learning is challenging even in the best of times. But when institutions face severe fiscal austerity, such support becomes a difficult task. We all face tough choices about what to emphasize and what to stop supporting. We find we must tax our creativity to the utmost to find new support strategies and resources. We are all asking ourselves similar questions: Is the cloud our salvation? Should we focus on support services and scale back on providing learning infrastructure? Can institutions collaborate on resource development? What are the core priorities that need to be retained? At this discussion, leaders in the field will discuss their ideas, programs, and the decisions they have made and are facing, and they will facilitate a brainstorming session with audience participants.
For the third year in a row I will be on the program with an accepted presentation at the Educause Learning Initiative annual meeting. This year I am doing a session with friend and colleague, Allan Gyorke, titled Incidental Openness, Exploring Stories of Education in the Open. As always I am really looking forward to sharing stories from PSU and having a the chance to expose some of the work our faculty are doing is really a treat! Below is the description of the session:
Incidental openness can happen. Institutional mandates typically create initiatives that are weighed down by policy and inefficiencies. At Penn State we have seen an explosion of openness due to the implementation of new platforms for use in teaching and learning. With these platforms in place, we have worked to rethink concepts such as e-portfolios, faculty development, collaboration, OER, and course management systems. During this session, we will describe what Penn State has done, show examples of the impact on teaching and learning, and provide an open forum to discuss our approach and practice to generating open teaching, design, and learning.
I have been invited to do a keynote presentation at Stevenson University focusing on harnessing the power of disruptive technologies in teaching and learning. I'll be speaking primarily to faculty from Stevenson, but I am told staff from across various offices will also be present. My talk will be titled, "Enabling the New Campus Conversation" and will cover some of the points I have been working to extend in the last year or so. I plan to integrate some new data from our freshly released 2009 FACAC student survey to help highlight how our students are adopting the services we are implementing on our campus. It should be a fun and engaging event that I have been looking forward to for quite some time.
I've been invited to speak to a group of faculty and staff at Penn State Abington to kick off the new spring semester. The talk will focus on how social computing can impact teaching and learning. The idea is to help faculty rethink the role of the open social web as to begin to see value in the approaches emerging across the Internet. I'll be sharing some thoughts that I hope will resonate with the group and perhaps push some of them to take advantage of many of the technologies we have available here at Penn State.
I have been invited to give the keynote talk at the MDLA fall conference. I plan to spend time following their theme -- Social Mania -- by focusing energy on the social web and its impact on teaching and learning. I am going to spend time talking about social environments, user created content, and the emergence of the One Button Web. I am looking forward to making new connections and meeting some new friends.