My presentation “Open, Connected, Social: Reflections of an Open Graduate Course Experience” has now been posted to the K12 Online Conference. View it here or below. I hope you enjoy.
Oct 222008
My very talented colleague, Dr. Patrick Lewis, and the amazing Kathy Cassidy have put together a trailer for their upcoming K12 Online Conference presentation. Here it is:
Cathy and Patrick have done some amazing stuff to bring stronger connections between students in our teacher education program and young children in the field. I am really looking forward to their presentation.
Sep 152008
I am happy to be one of the presenters for this year’s K12 Online Conference. The 2007 conference was one of my favourite educational events as there were so many excellent presentations. The conference is an example of open education at its best: open, transparent, free, and of high-quality. I am hoping that I can help add to the success of last year’s event.
Below is the official marketing flyer for the event. Please pass on the information to the teachers in your school, or other interested individuals.
Many of the presenters are putting up teasers for their sessions. I will not have time to put one together, but I can offer the trailer created for EC&I 831, the course that will be the focus of my K12 Online presentation. Apologies to those who have seen it before.
I hope you can attend the conference. My presentation will be titled “Open, Social, Connected: Reflections of an Open Graduate Course Experience.” I hope it will give insight into the challenges of creating a networked learning experience for university students while sharing some of the real successes of the experience.
Jul 092008
Sorry for this quiet space as of late, but I am currently in Greece attending ICICTE 2008 in Corfu.
Jun 262008
I will be leaving to Greece shortly to attend ICICTE in Corfu. The following is an early draft of a paper I wrote for the conference that outlines some of the processes and early feedback I received regarding a graduate course I recently taught, EC&I 831.
Comments are welcome and encouraged. Keep in mind that this is an early draft and there are likely many errors. It was a paper written a while ago BEFORE I had much of the new data in (which I am working through right now). I have only shared it at this point as I enjoy making my writing processes as transparent as my teaching.
May 182008
I have been busy with a number of things these days. Here are a few thoughts on the what is happening.
re: TLT08
I just came back from the TLT 2008 conference in Saskatoon. It was an excellent conference, and much better than last year. Highlights for me include the amazing keynotes by Rick Schwier and George Siemens, and excellent presentations by Brian Lamb and Dean Shareski. Unfortunately, I missed the keynote by Stephen Downes, although I heard it was amazing. Luckily, I was able to catch breakfast with Stephen and Dean the first day of the conference.
I was a part of three presentations at TLT. First, I presented with Kyle, Vi, Tiffany, and Ashley regarding our Digital Internship Project. Second, I co-presented with the Edtech Posse (Rick, Dean, Heather, Rob) on “The Posse Round Up 2.0“. Finally, I presented again with Rob regarding the Graduate course we recently co-taught, EC&I 831. I am currently researching the process and outcomes of this course, and Rob and I presented some of our initial observations. It was great to have met, former students of the course, Cindy, Dan, and Shaun at the conference as well.
I was also very lucky to have finally met some terrific people for the first time face-to-face. Jen, Cindy, Brian, D’Arcy, Kirk and Kelly … you are all amazing people. It was great to finally meet you all in person, and I really hope I get the chance again!
I would also like to congratulate those that won awards related to course design at the conference. We have so many terrific instructional designers, multimedia developers, and instructors in Saskatchewan, and it is great to see many of you recognized for your hard work. Also, congratulations to the organizing committee for putting together a truly excellent conference.
On a less congratulatory note, to the people that continuously asked the question “what about the cyberpredators?” at almost every presentation, take some to read this or this or contact me, and I can help you get over this fear.
I would also love to have a conversation with the gentleman who voiced concerns (and then walked out) regarding teachers using decentralized funding to buy non-standardized equipment (as mentioned in Dean’s session) and the implications for sustaining technical support. I believe your point was that the purchasing should follow the institutional/division priorities. Here are my thoughts on this.
Start with division priorities that are focused on student learning and supporting innovation throughout the system. Let us forget the term “technical support” and focus on “innovation support”. Let us make the first term a misnomer. If a school division cannot (for instance) get Macs to play nice with a Windows network, your technicians are not doing their job, or they need to go back to training. Technology implementation decisions that are based on technicians’ lack of knowledge or vendor biases are not likely sound decisions. Divisions are learning organizations, and continual learning should be the expectation for all members. And if economics is the stated excuse, why not partner with other school divisions to increase cost-savings? Locking in to single vendor agreements to save tiny margins on the bottom line is ripping off your students, and IMHO, is inexcusable whether it is with Apple, IBM or CocaCola.
There is where I usually rant about open source software and free tools … but I will leave that argument for today.
re: ECMP 355
I am very happy to be teaching a May/June course to undergraduate students related to the appropriate integration of technology in the classroom. My students have begun blogging, and are starting to get the feel for it. Feedback and comments on their posts would be greatly appreciated, and you can subscribe to the ECMP 355 megafeed here.
For course interactions, we are using Moodle again. And, I do not believe it has been officially announced by the University of Regina is making a full move to Moodle from WebCT by Fall of 2009. I am happy to be currently testing the latest U of R release. If anyone would like to see the course, let me know and I will get you the guest password.
re: St. Louis
I am very excited to have been asked by Elizabeth Helfant to present at MICDS in St. Louis near the end of May. I will be speaking to English and History teachers (my original areas of study) regarding personal learning networks and technology integration. I can’t wait!
re: ICICTE in Corfu
I also have had my paper accepted for ICICTE in Corfu in July. I try to get back to Greece every couple of years to revisit my roots. This conference has been an excellent in the past and the venue is always on a Greek island. I highly recommend the country, the people, and the conference.
re: Life
Life is busy these days. I am currently in North Battleford, and teaching in La Ronge tomorrow (yes, on the long weekend) with our Community Based Masters of Education program. I am happy to have my family along with me for the rest of the trip and I am hoping to take some nice photos (and a few deep breaths) along the way. Northern Saskatchewan has much beauty to see. Here’s a shot I took near Battleford today.
Yes, I am extremely busy with teaching, research, presentations, and family. However, life is good and as I reflected in my last post, I am a lucky, lucky man.
Jan 112008
This is bizarre.
Our University is hosting Westcast, a teacher education conference, this year.
However, someone has setup a fraudulent website titled “Westcast University” with direct pieces from our conference website and our University website. This looks like an academic-based 419 scheme.
After a few emails to the company hosting the site, it was taken down. I have sitesucked the entire site to use in future presentations. If you would like a copy, let me know.
Here are a few quotes from the fraudulent site. Remember, the real Westcast conference is a Canadian conference focused on Teacher Education.
Regina University is a registered charity whose aims & objectives are to empower individuals world-wide through offering grants for education, economic, business, development, and environmental conservation; to support groups addressing social, economic, tourism and environmental issues and a variety of philanthropic projects through grants to non-profit organizations, to promote the well-being of mankind by strengthening the capacity of charitable organizations to provide effective programs of quality. Regina University is pleased to announce the International Conference on Human and Community Development Summit: – Transforming civil society” that will bring together 314 representatives of NGO/CBO from all over the world is scheduled from 13th to 16th February 2008 in Regina Canada.
Wow, sounds like a great international conference. But, this is not our conference. And we are not “Regina University”, rather, the University of Regina.
Here is what “Regina University” offers:
FINANCIAL SUPPORT:
Apart from the financing of the 8 richest countries of the world (G8), the summit receives financial support from the Mitsubishi Bank of Japan and the Every Johnson Foundation for the participation of civil society members. As a result, Regina University will provide sponsorship for up to (03 – 05) international delegates from selected organization School and Association.
The Regina University sponsoring covers the following charges:
- The means of travel for selected delegates from home country to Regina (Canada), and from Canada to home country
- The accommodation for selected delegates,
- The per diem for selected delegates
- The medical insurance for the entire summit duration
- The displacement of delegated on the spot of conference (by bus)
Wow … what a deal! How generous! So, what do I need to do to sign up? Oh, looks like there is a registration process. It looks pretty simple, but don’t forget, there is just a small registration fee.
Payment Slip of the Registration Fee: The required registration fee of USD 210 $ per selected applicant should be paid through our nearest Legal Representation in your continent through Western Union Money Transfer.
And just to make things really easy, “Regina University” lists a representative in many geographic regions including Asia, Europe, Africa and Australia.
As mentioned before, this could be considered an example of a “419 scheme“, also known as “advance fee fraud“. These schemes typically aim to persuade people to “advance relatively small sums of money in the hope of realizing a much larger gain.” I know that usually 419 schemes promise much more than simple conference travel and accommodation (usually millions of dollars), but I am not sure how else to categorize this other than simple fraud.
Thoughts or comments on this issue? Has anyone else heard of an example like this?
Nov 162007
As reported by Heather at McToonish.
The first conference of the new organization Canadian Network for Innovation in Education will be held in Banff, Alberta April 27 – 30. The conference Web site is now up, and the call for proposals has been launched.
This is the organization that was formed from the merger of the Association for Media and Technology in Education Canada (AMTEC) and the Canadian Association for Distance Education (CADE).
This is one of the conferences I’m planning to attend this year. Let me know if anyone else is going, would love to meet many of you face-to-face for the first time.
Conference Site – Call for proposals ends Jan 2, 2008.
Oct 082007
Educon 2.0 looks like a must-attend event, I really like the axioms/guiding principles of the event.
The Axioms / Guiding Principles of EduCon 2.0:
1) Our schools must be inquiry-driven, thoughtful and empowering for all members.
2) Our schools must be about co-creating — together with our students — the 21st Century Citizen
3) Technology must serve pedagogy, not the other way around.
4) Technology must enable students to research, create, communicate and collaborate
5) Learning can — and must — be networked.
Learn more and register at: http://educon20.wikispaces.com
Oct 062007
I’m sure that the majority of my readers know about this, but I am quite sure there are many than don’t.
This is a conference by educators for educators around the world interested in integrating emerging technologies into classroom practice. A goal of the conference is to help educators make sense of and meet the needs of a continually changing learning landscape.
It’s good to know that there is free registration, and that all sessions will be downloadable. I am sure there will be some amazing presentations and I’m really looking forward to participating in the sessions.
Nov 242006
Old friend Peter Arthur sent this information my way. Thanks Peter. So where’s your blog? :-)
The Public Knowledge Project is pleased to announce that the first international PKP conference will be held from July 11–13, 2007 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The conference will provide opportunities for those involved in the organiztion, promotion, and study of scholarly communication to share and discuss innovative work in scholarly publishing, with a focus on the contribution that open source publishing technologies can make to improving access to research and scholarship on a global and public scale.
The conference will appeal to all segments of the PKP community: software developers and technical support specialists; journal publishers, editors, and staff; librarians; and researchers in scholarly publishing. As well, prospective and first time users of OJS and other PKP software will be able to learn more about the systems and establish contacts with the PKP community. All attendees will be able to attend a range of topical sessions on trends in scholarly communication and publishing, open access initiatives, open source software, academic and library communities, and future plans for OJS, OCS, and the Open Archives Harvester.
Call for Papers
http://ocs.sfu.ca/pkp2007/callforpapers.php
This looks excellent for anyone interested in the institutional and global sharing, collaboration and development of open knowledge. See you there!
