Tech Trends from Educause 09

The Chronicle’s Wired Campus released a short video clip about the buzz from the  Educause Conference 09 in Denver, CO. A few attendees were asked about what they thought the top technological trends in higher education & also their concerns at the conference:

Picture c/o educausestaff on Flickr.

Trends:

• Web 2.0
• Virtualization
• Cloud Computing
• Social Networking
• Mobile Learning
• ePortfolios

Concerns:

• Open Access
• Transformational Course Management Systems
• Security Concerns
• Finances
• Learners’ Needs
• Keeping track of connections made at the conference

Whether you’re at the Educause 09 conference or following from afar, you can stay connected to the diolage on Twitter (hashtag #EDUCAUSE09), Flickr, & via the streaming of select conference content online.

NACADA Conference 09

I’m looking forward to connecting with advisors next week at the NACADA Annual Conference in San Antonio.  I was fortunate get the time off work to travel south, since the conference is being held in my (new) home state of TX. Conferences provide a great opportunity to connect with other  professionals/faculty, share new ideas and learn what is going on in the wonderful world of advising.

Since some of my favourite academic advising friends are not able to make it to the Lone Star state (due to department cut backs and whatnot), my advisor/tech guru friend, Eric Stoller, suggested we continue to use the Twitter hashtag to enable non-attendees the opportunity to virtually follow the conference action. This ideas was quite a success at the NACADA Technology Seminar amongst the seminar attendees. Eric used the hashtag: #nacadatech09 to aggregate all tagged tweets into the NACADA Tech website via a widget from monitter.com. Amazing.

The hashtag for the NACADA Annual Conference  will be: #nacada09
Now tweet your little hearts out, my friends. [Thanks, EDS. You rock!]

How YOU can participate as either a NACADA Annual Conference Tweeter or as a virtual follower  (c/o @ericstoller):

NACADA Tweeters:

• Step 1: Sign up for a Twitter account.
• Step 2: Take your laptop or web-ready cellphone to San Antonio and hope that WiFi is available.
• Step 3: Post updates on Twitter about the conference: session pointers, take-aways, best practices, key issues, etc.
• Step 4: In every 140 character post, include “#nacada09″ (without quotes and a space in front of and after the tag)

Virtual followers:

• Step 1: Follow the virtual conference action via a Twitter search for #nacada09
• Step 2: Repeat step 1.

Course Exploration Continues… (Day 2)

Today was the second half of Exploring the Future of Courses: From Courses to Dis/Course web conference.  There great things to hear & learn about from the 3 sessions:

• Identity in the age of the open classroom (D’Arcy Norman) & Identity Presentation
• Pedagogy and web 2 (Grainne Conole) & her Discourse Presentation
• Teaching for Openness (Alec Couros)

It is great to engage with others who share the same passion and interest in the EdTech community. Although there was some great exchange today, I did leave the online conference with many questions and thoughts to ponder. After digesting the wealth of information & presentations I will be sure to share more thoughts.

Many thanks to:

• Martin Weller, George Siemens, and Grainne Conole for initiating the web conference
• All the presenters who shared their experiences & knowledge
• And of course, the many participants who contributed to a myriad of discussions & posts

For more follow up discussions check out the Disc09 Moodle.

Exploring the Future of Courses

Exploring the Future of Courses: From Course to Dis/Course is a short, online (FREE) conference May 14 & 15, 2009. Anyone is able to join in the session presentations & discussions that delve into the topic of online learning and course content that is shared in Elluminate & in Moodle.

Current course models of development, creation and sharing is in question for our learners. Many challenges and changes to digital technologies will impact how to best design course content.

Today’s presentations included:

• How digital technologies are impacting higher education (Martin Weller) – Digital Implications for Universities by @mweller
  
• Connected and disconnected learners (Josie Fraser

• Messing with Data (Tony Hirst)

• Future Course Models (George Siemens)

Most of the sessions discussed how educators are managing the challenges new technology presents and its effect on current course models, data-driven material and learner needs in a digital.

For those of you who could not attend today, be sure to join in online tomorrow OR catch up with the conversation online. If are not able to tune in live, be sure to follow along in Twitter, Delicious or blogs with the hash tag – #disc09

[The sessions in Elluminate will be recorded and archived shortly.]

Great question posed by George Siemens, towards the end of his presentation, to further ponder:

“What is the vital currency of education in a world where the information cycle is no longer controllable?”

Campus Technology Conference 2009

Campus Technology Conference

July 27–30, 2009
Boston Convention and Exhibition Center

Reasons to attend:

1. A New Approach to your Academic Technology Future

2. Real Information from the Real World

3. Nonstop Networking Opportunities

4. Collegial Environment

5. The American Experience

 

If you can make the conference, I am sure that it would be well worth it.  I know that my professional development budget has been spent, so I will just stay tuned for the archives.  Here are recordings from the 2008 Conference.

For more information & updates be sure to follow @Campus_Tech on twitter.

 

Update:  Just found a FREE Conference from Purdue University if you happen to live close by.  

TEACHING AND LEARNING WITH TECHNOLOGY CONFERENCE
April 21- 22, 2009