EDUCAUSE | educause conference

NERCOMP 2008: Education and Technology in Service of the Networked Society

cluckett — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 12:09:39 -0600

The NERCOMP 2008 Annual Conference, "Education and Technology in Service of the Networked Society," will be held March 10–12 in Providence, Rhode Island, a new location for the conference. View the program and register by February 11 to save money with low early-bird rates.

The conference will focus on these topic areas:

Enterprise Services and Administrative Systems
Leadership, Planning, and Organizational Development
Library and Research Initiatives
Policy, Regulations, and Security
Technology for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment
Technology Support
Corporate and Campus Solutions

General Session Speakers

Scott Kirsner, Boston Globe Columnist
A presidents' panel with Cheryl Norton, President, Southern Connecticut State University; S. Georgia Nugent, President, Kenyon College; Susan Scrimshaw, President, Simmons College; moderated by Joanne M. Kossuth, Associate Vice President and CIO, Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering.

Half-day preconference seminars will cover important issues such as emerging technologies, essential privacy practices, and the future of the library.

Corporate Exhibits and Sessions

Exhibit hall: View the names of the nearly 60 exhibitors.
Corporate presentations

Midwest Regional 2008: The Evolving Challenges Facing IT in Higher Ed

cluckett — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 11:20:02 -0600

The 2008 Midwest Regional Conference, "New Directions in Higher Ed IT: Navigating the Course While Still Drawing the Map," will be held March 17–19 in Chicago. View the program and register by February 19 to save money with low early-bird rates.

The conference will focus on these topic areas:

Collaborate from Where You Are
IT Agility for a Constantly Changing Environment
IT Infrastructure: Adding Value and Helping Organizations Achieve Their Strategic Objectives
Technology to Support Learning
Libraries, Information Resources, and Literacy (New!)
Corporate and Campus Solutions

Keynote Speakers

Susan E. Metros, Deputy CIO & Associate Vice Provost, University of Southern California, Challenging IT Leaders to Mashup, Twitter, Tag, and Poke: New IT Strategies for a Digital Society
Bradley Wheeler, Vice President for Information Technology & CIO and Professor of Information Systems, Kelley School of Business (Topic TBA)

Half-day preconference seminars will offer a close look at important current issues, such as essential privacy practices, rendering animations and images for more dynamic courses, and using communication as an effective leadership strategy.

Western Regional 2008: The Balance Between Institutional and Individual User Needs

cluckett — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 11:52:13 -0600

The 2008 Western Regional Conference, "One Size Doesn’t Fit All: Finding Practical and Innovative Solutions for Your Campus," will be held March 31–April 2 in San Francisco. View the program and register by March 3 to save money with low early-bird rates.

The conference will focus on these topic areas:

Engaging Today's Learners
Leadership and Management Challenges: Rapid Change, New Demands, and Limited Resources
New Models for Providing Technology Services
Corporate and Campus Solutions

General Session Speakers

Up Against the Firewall
Monday, March 31, 1:00–2:15 p.m.
Brenda Laurel, Chair and Professor, Graduate Program in Design, California College of the Arts
Rob Tow, Science and Technology Consultant, California College of the Arts
Don't Download This Panel
Wednesday, April 2, 10:45 a.m.–12:00 noon
Closing panel with Kenneth C. Green, Campus Computing Project; Greg DePriest, NBC Universal Vice President, Technology Policy; and Fred Von Lohman, EFF Senior Staff Attorney; moderated by Kent Wada, Director, IT Policy, UCLA

Half-day preconference seminars will cover important issues such as privacy practices for academic organizations, effective leadership strategies, and fitting new technologies into existing infrastructures.

Podcast: Getting the Most Out of the EDUCAUSE 2007 Annual Conference Experience

gbayne — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 08:46:53 -0500

Whether or not you're attending the EDUCAUSE Annual Conference this year, this 14 minute discussion with EDUCAUSE President Brian Hawkins and EDUCAUSE Media Relations Director Peter DeBlois can serve as an invaluable tool for evaluating your options, maximizing your time, and even making the conference work for you from home.

Some helpful links for those attending the EDUCAUSE 2007 Annual Conference in Seattle:

The Itinerary Builder allows you to chart, save, update, download, and print your conference schedule before you even get there.
The Knowledge Pathfinder helps you find the topics and sessions that interest you.
A list of featured speakers and topics that will be a part of the conference.
A full conference schedule.
A FAQcovering several conference topics and concerns.
Local information from the Seattle Convention and Visitors Bureau.

EDUCAUSE 2005: A Dangerous Discussion with Steve Gilbert ... NOT!

AllanADL — Tue, 01 Nov 2005 05:36:53 -0600

I have been waiting three and a half years to meet Steve Gilbert face to face. Steve is President of the Teaching, Learning and Technology Group. I can't remember how I first got to know about the work of the TLT Group but my first recollection of Steve was the multiple emails we had together as he edited and fine tuned my submission to his highly moderated list serve on teaching learning and technology. In this podcast recorded as part of the Educause podcast project, Steve and I discuss a interesting and provocative project he is managing called "Dangerous Discussions Initiative - Engaging Dangerous Discussions: Heat and Light Without Flames" .... now that's a title worth thinking about!

The TLT Group list-serv has been around for a long time and goes to thousands of educators around the world. It was there my relationship with Steve began, however things really started to get interesting when the TLT Group established a Learningtimes Community and started running online synchronous events using a virtual classroom I couldn't resist joining in. Time zones are unforgiving and because these events were targeting the learning and teaching community in the USA, Aussies who live upside down and half the planet away have to do some unusual things to be part of these live events. Many a time I have rolled out of bed at the ridiculous time of 3.00am washed my face grabbed a hot drink and participated in a stimulating live event then gone back to bed. If you search the TLT archives you will many jokes about Allan in his jammies.

My relationship with Steve is further evidence that you can build strong collaborative relationships online before you meet face to face. Hmmmm that subject would make for a great podcast ... but at another time.

So what are these Dangerous Discussions (DD) all about. Steve says they are issues that are significant, controversialand tractable. DD issues are characterized by ineffective conflicts and realistic hopes. For these issues, diverse stakeholders:

hold strong, varied opinions, and
cannot communicate often, easily, or effectively enough.

However, there is also good reason to believe that we are likely to make significant improvements by working together civilly and constructively on these issues. As members of academic communities we, especially, should be able to deal honestly, openly, respectfully, and constructively with these issues.

The Goals of the DD Initiative are to identify issues that have the potential, if resolved even partially, for contributing to significant improvements in teaching and learning (with technology). Enable and help diverse groups in higher education to work together civilly on these issues and to develop and implement realistic responses to them. Use technology effectively in ways that support, rather than undermine, effective communication and collaboration to achieve these goals.

So what did Steve say was the first area/subject they identified as a DD - classroom sizes! Now if you don't think that is a DD try telling a teacher that their class numbers are about to increase by 50% for economic reasons and be ready for a dangerous response. Another thing Steve identified in the podcast only emerged as a DD topic the very day of the podcast .... talk about life impact take aways from the conference . The emerging DD is about Accrediting Associations and their emerging standards and learning outcomes.

This is a very brief overview of what Steve talks about in the podcast. He asks should a faculty member start to talk like this: "We believe that many of us in this institution have adopted the attitude that we are trying to figure out what is the absolute minimum we can do to assure we are in compliance with wha's required by the accreditation process. We want to do the minimum possible so we can get back to what we really want to do, which we think is a better way than what is required by the acreditating body". Steve asks would it be a good thing to say that, would that get the person into trouble or would it start a dangerous discussion which hopefully would turn into a constructive conversation?

Do you think it would lead to heat and light without flames? Please enjoy this podcast and I would love to have some feedback comments.

Regards
Allan

Vlogs

markmorton — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 15:58:41 -0500

At a recent Educause workshop in Toronto, I was introduced by Cyprien Lomas to "vlogs" which are the offspring of blogs. (The evolution of that word is interesting: some years ago, the phrase "web log" was clipped to just "blog," and now that word has undergone another generation of clipping and fusing (with the word "video") to result in "vlog.") The vlog that Cyprien used as an example was the daily one at http://www.rocketboom.com. He also referred to the "Numa numa" video that is, if I understood him correctly, the sort of original and accidental inspiration for the subsequent proliferation of vlogs. That "Numa numa" video is available for viewing here: www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/numa.php. I've also just learned that there's a fairly new word to describe a phenomenon that suddenly achieves "cult" status on the web (like "Numa numa" or like the clip of William Hung singing "She Bangs" that circulated the web a year or so ago) -- those sudden "spreadings" of something on the web are called "memes" or "neta." It reminds me, in a way, of a pandemic like the 1916 influenza outbreak: it comes out of nowhere, spreads like wildfire, and then vanishes just as suddenly. Think Kato Kaelin.

Vlogs might have potential as an online learning tool, but at the moment they don't seem (to me) to have achieved the "validity" or impact of blogs. Whereas some bloggers have attained real influence, especially in political contexts, vlogs still seem to be a bit on the fringe. I think what needs to happen is for some "discernment" to occur with regard to what is best conveyed by text, what is best conveyed by audio (as in podcasts), and what is best conveyed by audio/video (as in vlogs). As well, I fear that our we are all such sophisticated viewers of television, that we might find most vlogs to be quite amateurish. In other words, whereas technology has made it fairly easy for anyone to make a vlog using just their laptop and a webcam, it's still very hard (and expensive) to make it look GOOD. Without "high production values" a vlog might come across to a media-savvy student as corny or hackneyed.