I plan to spend some time reflecting on the CI597C course Scott McDonald and I co-taught and how we implemented our deisgn to include both rigor and emerging technologies. The session will be hosted in an open Adobe Connect room provided by UW. If you are interested in learning more, take a look at the event page.

My slides for this event in PDF form.

Engaging the New Classroom Conversation

During this talk we will investigate key trends impacting educators in their overall design of learning. Focusing on the emergence of user-created content, social spaces, and mobile devices we will take an integrated look at how we can better utilize technology within these areas to meet the needs of our students. We will also explore how these technologies have, and continue to, impact both faculty and learners and review some active examples within each area. During this talk, we will focus attention on how educators can leverage selected disruptive technologies to shape learning outcomes in new ways.

From the conference website:

The Faculty Academy for Teaching and Learning Technologies is a free annual event hosted by the University of Mary Washington. This year's conference will be held May 13-14, 2009, at the University of Mary Washington's College of Graduate and Professional Studies. For the past 14 years, Faculty Academy has brought together faculty and staff from both campuses at UMW to share and celebrate the year's efforts and accomplishments in the classroom, with teaching and learning technologies as the specific focus (or, one might say, catalyst) of the event.

This year I did a talk titled, "If that's scholarship then we are all doomed."

I enjoyed this very much. Great questions from the audience and I found that we are all dealing with the same set of issues for the most part. David Warlick was there and wrote an overview of the session.

Download a PDF of my Slides.

Building the Classroom of the Future

From iTunes U to Twitter, the world is a classroom more than ever before thanks to technology. Today's students learn the scientific method from the Discovery Channel's MythBusters, hear the basics of physics from MIT's Walter Lewin on iTunes U, and debate politics on Facebook. Are these "classrooms" poised to be even more popular venues for learning in the future? How can colleges leverage these tools?

Presenters

• Cole W. Camplese, director, education technology services, Pennsylvania State University at University Park
• Jason Ediger, director of iTunes U and mobile learning, Apple Inc.

Download the PDF of my slides.

Technology is reshaping college admissions, course-management systems are making it possible to detect students in academic trouble before it gets too deep, and development offices are creating social networks that energize alumni giving. But not every high-tech strategy pays off for colleges. This session will highlight expensive pitfalls as well as rewarding opportunities.

I am really looking forward to being a part of this and to be simply attending the event. I am honored to be a part of the panel and for being asked to participate.

Moderator:

• Jeffrey J. Selingo, The Chronicle of Higher Education

Panelists:

• Stephanie Balmer, dean of admissions and financial aid, Dickinson College
• John Campbell, associate vice president for information technology, Purdue University
• Cole W. Camplese, director, Education Technology Services, Pennsylvania State University at University Park
• Andrew Shaindlin, executive director, Caltech Alumni Association

Collaboration and community are key characteristics of Web 2.0 technologies. These social mediating services have garnered considerable usage. One new form of social communication on the Web is micro-blogging, using Web services such as Twitter, Jaiku, Facebook (status postings), Pownce, and FriendFeed. Micro-blogging is a form of communication in which users can describe things of interest and express attitudes that they are willing to share with others in short posts (i.e., micro-blogs) distributed by instant messages, mobile phones, email, or the Web. These micro-blogs are short comments usually delivered to a network of associates.

Micro-blogging is new means of communication, allowing people to share these thoughts almost anywhere (i.e., while driving, getting coffee, or sitting at their computer) to almost anyone connected (e.g., Web, cellular phone, IM, email) on a scale that has not been seen in past. While the shortness of the micro-blog (usually limited to about 140 characters) keeps people from writing long thoughts, it is precisely the micro part that makes these blogs unique from other communication mediums like blogs, Webpages, and online reviews. In short, these micro-blogs are immediate, ubiquitous, and scalable. Since they are online, they are also typically accessible by anyone with an Internet connection.

There are also archival in the sense that these micro-blogs permanently exist and are searchable via Web search engines and other services. In this panel, we will examine micro-blogs as utterances and expressions and their possible long term effect on the way we communicate.

After the event I will be sure to post thoughts and a reflection.

The focus of this session is to discuss the blogging platform at Penn State as a vehicle for student e-portfolios. We will share the ways we have begun to take full advantage of the fundamental aspects of blogging and the richness of the blogging culture to engage Penn State students in professional discourse communities around frameworks and problems of practice associated with their chosen professions. In cases where this information might be used by programs for accreditation, reporting, and/or self-assessment purposes, we will share our vision for capturing student evidence at specified points across their programs.

See details at the Educuase site. You can grab our slides as a PDF.

We have a blog setup that will hold all our materials.

Session description below:

The presenters have evangelized open personalized publishing platforms and have struggled with establish closed environments as the basis for teaching and learning with technology. Their overall quest has led them to find powerful and flexible online publishing platforms. In a series of lightning talks, the presenters will share work at their respective organizations that they believe to be useful to others in the teaching and learning community. Each will select a project or problem that poses a significant challenge, which will then be discussed by all attendees.

Find the description online at the Educause site.