This international conference only comes around every 3 years, so I was looking forward to lots of learning in person and via Twitter #elearnconf.Day 1:
- Keynote: Barbara Means on Blended Learning: Prospects for Transforming K-12 Schools...covered the meta-analysis data on online learning. Blended learning on average showed better results. Limitations of the study included a limited number of studies. Appeal for blended learning include: 1) potential cost savings, 2) personalization and 3) prep for higher ed. Interrelating blended learning doesn't quite fit into the traditional model easily (structure, scheduling, etc.) and has the potential to cause transformation with careful planning.
- Effects of Virtual Human Body Simulation on course performance: Florida State Univ. conducted a research with two courses (one w/ out simluation & one with). Results indicated students were more engaged and performed better with simulation.
Day 2:
- Keynote: Techno Troubadours and Teacherpreneurs by Amy Burvall & Herb Mahelona. The presentation included many video mash ups with the message of using music to engage and excite students for learning. Presentation link, http://tinyurl.com/musickeynote.
- Opportunities for Moble App to Empower Informal Learning in Univ. Environments by Dr. Knezek (Univ. of North Texas). He pointed us to this Sim School Web site, funded by Melinda & Bill Gates Foundation, he was involved with showcasing a flight simulator for teachers, http://www.simschool.org/
- Online Learning Communities for Teachers by Katrina Liu (Univ. of Wisconsin-Whitewater). Connect teachers using LMS, blog, Ning, Facebook & emails because they found it was difficult to stay contained only within 1 technology. Designing PBL for teachers to complete projects based upon their own student interests helped increase relevancy for teachers to stay connected to their course.
- Twitter in the University Classroom with Todd Kisicki from Arizona State University, #kisAACE. Examples include: 1) Tweet article for students w/ hashtag to respond to, 2) Ask students a question to respond to, 3) integrating Twitter feed w/ Facebook (98% of college students on).
- The APPS class for educators w/ Charles Miller from Univ. of Minnesota. Everyone gets an iPad funded by donations. :) The course was structured within 16 weeks w/ 3 projects: Thoughtful App Design Presentation, Concept App Design, Build Your App. Teachers design App in Keynote before programming during week 5. Students who finish early teach others. Student Apps that were shared included: Adventure Learning, Hotseat, Go Southeast MN. Interesting how students don't need a background in programming to successfully develop apps.
Day 4:
- Keynote with Craig Kapp from New York University. Augmented reality is in the center of real world and virtual reality. E.g. Hallmark card with sound and pops out 3-D. How does it work? camera, load software and render in real time. How can you use it in education? Augmented reality textbooks w/ animations that pop out of the book.
- AR Sights - student need facility with Google Sketch Up...students build their models.
- Zoo Burst, http://www.zooburst.com/ - 3-D pop up book builder. Works with flat graphics (.jpg, .png, .gif) - applications for education include creating digital story books, travel photo books, collaborate w/ other teachers to create books to share globally.
- QR codes - great way to take a physical space and create hyperlinks to virtual environment.
- Junaio application, http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/junaio-augmented-reality-browser/id337415615?mt=8 - mobile tool that allows you to build augmented reality experience. Glue app...can take a photo (e.g. postcard) to put 3-D object on it. Location-based channel...can add on wayfinding.
- http://flash.tarotaro.org/, ARToolkit marker generator site to create markers for augmented reality.
- http://lite.textmarks.com/, free SMS alerts for groups in education, religious and non-profits.
- Livescribe Pen, http://www.livescribe.com/, can take notes and incorporate audio files into different areas of the "paper."
- A 12 Step Program to Online Teaching Success with Lawrence Ragan from the Pennsylvania State University. It's important to set world class student experience - performance metrics, performance expectations, competencies for online teaching successes
- Driver's license - training and prepared for LMS, etc.
- Owner's manual - know the structure, flow and rhythm of the course and how it is diffferent from other teaching formats.
- Schedule - make sure to plan ahead.
- Manage it! - create a personal "teaching plan" that defines daily, weekly and monthly course teaching activity.
- Know your learners and their characteristics - keep connected
- Know what strategies you will use throughout the course to engage your learners (early and often)
- Develop a routine to establish and mantain your "teaching presence."
- Establish and communicate your teaching performance expectations.
- Establish and communicate your expectations of students' performance.
- Know how you will manage assessment strategies.
- Identify and USE your support resources (go to people and systems) when problems arise.
- Relax and enjoy this new teaching environment as a chance to grow!
- Many presenters involved their colleagues in the presentation via Skype.
- It's a research heavy conference, meaning some presentation may be hit or miss, but overall, if you select the sessions well, there will be some gems.
- I already shared my experiences with our DL project charter, Initiative B project core team (10/20)
- I will be sharing this blog with the rest of my team and during our next team meeting (10/26)
- For this conference, I chose to be fairly active on Twitter to share my learnings and found it to be engaging by tweeting with the hash tag. It got me thinking on how Twitter could be incorporated into a "flipped classroom" model as well as teacher PD experiences.
- I always feel refreshed when attending conferences with new ideas to incorporate into the work I do daily.
My Twitter feed: http://twitter.com/dorothyhirata
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