Okay. let the roller coaster continue! For some unknown reason, my day began at 4am with somebody trying to get into my room – as it turned out, it was a chemically confused woman looking for somebody else (I assume – as I never actually opened the door to find out…). Anyway, having naughtilly been up till 1am watching 24 series 6 on my macbook, I was ready to call CTU – and in fact did for a laugh… I rememberd the number Jack thingy gives in one episode as 310 597 3781 but it just gets through to a recorded message. Hey ho.
Anyway. We had an interesting chat last evening around the variation of experiences that this excellent conference provides. Eveyone works hard and does great jobs but there’s still this air of “hey, we tried using a wikki last month” and “how many of you have a facebook account – oh, a few, right …’
Once more, there’s an 8am start to the presentations – this is a serious conference!
First up today is Mary Somerville and collaborative information commons approaches …
Involve students from the very beginning in agreeing the purpose of the commons – a lesson for us???
The partner goals were to enable faculty innovation and to enhance student IT literacy by getting IT and Library staff to work together.
Students wanted flexible spaces to accomplish different tasks and cross disciplinary activities in an interactivity student/staff learning community. The recognised that information sharring is essentially a social interaction.
There was action research data presented showing immediate benefits in learning.
This could be seen as contradictory to yesterday’s presentation on authentic tasks and assessments – need more detail However, she sites a learn by doing philosophy – which is actually exactly what yesterday’s guy was talking about.
She defines learning commons as student centred research.
A low budget video spoke to students and had a tour – things like student projector facilities and displays on pillars that could be swung around appropriately etc.lots of power for docking laptops and tablets. TV and gaming area.
They realised however that they had designed to support teaching over learning – so they designed a zone of innovation to rectify it.
They used the Educause student space survey tool and gave the sttudents a camera to take pictures of their favourite places to study – what a good idea!
As a side note – everywhere you look, there are people squirrelling around power points and sitting on stairs to use their laptops – and the conference sponsors are getting ever more outrageous in their attmepts to attract passers by. We have several magician salesmen who do tricks and give sles patter, unicclists and jugglers – and even a massage facility and an oxygen bar!!! I wonder what we’ll all be doing during the breaks in five years time?!!
Next up – Robert Mendenhall et al and The Role of IT in an Age of Access, Affordability and Accountability – Spelling Commission etc … This was of some interest to non-US participants though I’m not sure that the many people leaving the room think it was worth a keynote general session …
(before that we had a presentation of the annual awards for innovation, collaboration and leadership in the sector p including one for uPortal)
And now for … Greg Jackson – things I’ve screwed up … This is the guy who wonthe leadership award this year.
I got in when he was talking about type A mistakes – those you make and the outcome is predictable – eg turning up at the wrong time and missing the meeting.
Tppe B mistakes are the things you thought you did right that end in a different outcome Good design cannot compensate for wrong goals. Good design has different meanings.
We can make type B mistakes in our jobs – no matter how good we are … Reflection is essential
He recalled his early time at MIT where he was encouraged to say that he could do things in IT with budgets much lower than he felt or time showed would be achievable. What should he have done and what was best for the Uniersity. Should he have fought and not accepted the myth?
Travel and its discontents… type C mistakes – where doing the wrong thing yields the right answer! He gave several examples of each.
Lunch – well, that was hard – a 1.5 hour search of down town Seattle to find a shop I saw the other day that sold American Indian dolls. Eventually found it and when I told the bloke where I was heading (convention centre), he directed me up the stairs by the shop – and there it was!!!
Next up – a session on uPortal and its development. EEEK, NO – I’m going to join the number of people who session surf and I’m off next door …
Joshua Baron – riding the 2.0 wave successfully.
Over the last two years or so, their staff have used IT to really just do the same old things but with a bit more efficiency. He asked the audience how we could use technology to enhance te toilet. Some guys in Japan have integrated a urinalysis device that gives you a prompt to contact your doc if there’s anything wrong …
He then shared his framework for learning interaction. content, subject matter, peers – then an analysis of how web 2.0 technologies might be used to innovate and change each of these.
Content -from the college textbook… don’t start with the technology, start with the pedagogical need. He used the experience of overseas placements and podcasting. They found that it forced them out into dealing with the local people to get good examples online.
Interaction with subject matter experts (does that ean “staff”?)… why don’t we do this with some of our international franchises???
He demo’d yackpack which was a good way of having online verbal conversations … they are using it with women in China from various generations interacting with their local students on a course …
Its been good for me to really take in during several sessions, that its the pedagogy that matters not the tech – and how we really examine our teaching to see what we can do with the technology to enable the pedagogy to evolve.
Next up – Julie Evans – are we ready for tomorrow’s students? … More on the technolgy of schools these days and the expectations of those coming out of them…
Evening spent at the Museum of Flight. What a TOP PLACE to visit. And a great flight sim – I’ve never seen a New Yorker scream as much as the one sat next to me while I flew!
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