Recently in TLT Symposium Category

Sneak peak.

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Now that we're back from break and diving into a brand new year, preparations kick into high gear on the TLT Symposium. I can't believe that there's only 72 days until this year's event. There's still a lot to do, but I enjoy watching the event take shape as pieces begin to fall into place. Symposium is incredibly well organized, and I'm always amazed at how smooth operations and logistics are every year. It's really a pleasure to work on this event. I lead Rogue team (shocker!) whose job it is to engage the community and help get people excited. There's quite a lot to get excited about: our amazing keynote speaker Jane McGonigal, for one. Author, gamer, researcher, TED speaker, and Violet Blue's #1 Sexy Geek of 2011 (this is how I envision her when she heard that news), Jane is one formidable force. In addition to this incredible keynote speaker, we've got innovative examples of new ways to involve technology and engage students by our incredible faculty members (think gamification, flipping the classroom, digital scholarship and informal learning spaces--to name just a few). We've even got a couple of surprises, all wrapped up in this year's theme: Embracing change and the culture of teaching and learning.

The rest of the story.

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Last week, my friend Tim (@thecobblr) posted a link on Twitter to a YouTube video of two boys trying to replicate the magician's tablecloth trick, with somewhat mixed results.



As videos go, it was a little giggle. But I noticed it looked like there were multiple takes of Michel and Sven and, since they were short, I watched them all. And after I watched all the videos together, it struck me that watching the failures in sequence made for a much better delivery of the punchline of the last video. See for yourself.

We are two days away from one of my favorite events of the year. While the full name is a bit of a mouthful--The Penn State Symposium for Teaching and Learning with Technology--we fondly refer to it simply as Symposium. This is an event packed to overflowing with examples and dialog of what we are doing at Penn State and it is an unbelievably rich experience. Every year I think I know what's going on, and every year I am amazed at the number of Penn State faculty demonstrating their willingness to embrace emerging technologies and incredibly innovative thinking. I am blessed to have a job that allows me to help, in some small part, highlight these amazing faculty. 

Giggity.

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I'm sitting in the first planning meeting for this year's TLT Symposium. The theme? Community Engagement and the Culture of Teaching and Learning. 

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ZOMG! Clay Shirky. Community Engagement. Squee! 

I cannot tell you how incredibly excited I am about this. Then, to make make matters even more amazingly cool, in 45 minutes we had a creative explosion of ideas and a thing that totally fits into the idea of community engagement. I can't wait until the unveiling begins, because it's gonna rawk your world.

Giggity!

Just call me Robin2go.

Robin Bradford Smail

"You can't stop the signal, Mal."
-- Firefly