This was a different week for me since I had a conference in Madison to attend.

Monday – I spent the day finishing up the acting gig. That was a tough assignment. I didn’t realize how difficult it was to act natural. I’m far too dramatic to be an actor 🙂

Tuesday – Travel to Wisconsin for the conference. Everything went smoothly. Glad to have time to spend with Amy S and her better half, Revel. Worked on some items for courses that will run for Fall ’12 and peer eval issues.

Ate some Ethiopian and spent some time watching the sunset at the student center. Awesome ending of the day.

Wednesday – Signed up for two workshops for this day.

Creating and distributing content for mobile learning – Really great session about MASLO and how it can be used to create content for mobile. Wish that I knew earlier about needing adobe air and maslo installed. Had to do it on my macbook which has an old OS. Great discussion on what is mobile. This is such a moving target right now. The consensus was about phones and tablets. Interesting that laptops are leaving the conversation. Also a good point that connectivity is almost becoming a must for mobile. Not sure how this can be resolved with so many fighting for bandwidth.

Using mobile devices to support hybrid and online learning – Felt disappointed after this session. It wasn’t about mobile at all. It was about using different tools on the web to teach and manage courses. One of the presenters started the session by saying that prepping for the workshop was “agony.” Should have left at that point.

Worked a bit more on courses both for summer and fall throughout the day. Ate out at an Indian Restaurant. Bit of rain, but still had a chance to connect with attendees at the conference during a stroll down State Street.

Thursday – This was the day of my lightning session, so I was thinking about it all day. Glad to meet and talk to some new people and people that I had met previously. Good to catch up with Jan Davis who has a real heart to teaching and learning through video.

Keynote 1: The Art of Changing the Brain – This was good but a bit slow. It seemed that the presenter suffered from Parkinson’s.

Here are a few notes that I captured on my iphone

Brain to mind

Information becomes knowledge

Knowledge – understanding of information

Meaningful learning

Principal 1: use widespread regions of cortex

*A) motor(action)

B) integrating

(1) front region

(2) back region

C) sensing

2) two kinds of integration

A) back regions – making meaning of sensory info

*B) front regions – creating ideas, choices, predictions by intentional integration of pics, memories, & facts

4 pillars of learning – sci mthd

1) get info

2) make & discover meaning

3) hypothesize, predict

4) act-test

 

Principle 2: Knowledge is connections – discover & utilize existing ones.

Complexity & efficiency Network model – transformation of light from physical light to cognitive enlightenment

Cellular networks = knowledge

 

Principal 3 – tap into ancient brain

Emotion chemicals:

– adrenaline

-dopamine

-serotonin

produce branching

“The joy of learning is as indispensable in study as breathing is in running.”

Dopamine paths – reward in the front?

Reward system & movement – are students “getting anywhere?” Am I making progress?

I-5 Isn’t online hard enough? Now you want group work too?

Lujean Baab, Assistant Director of Instructional Design, Development, and Support, Virginia Tech

Enjoyed this session since it was really hit the mark on issues with group work. It was a good reminder of the necessity of facilitating emotional students. Let them vent, justify feelings, and redirect.

When Lujean did random team generation, it was done via live session. I liked that transparent approach.

She used live tools and screen caps to scaffold in the course.

She penalized students who took control of team work.

The focus of the group work was on process.

I-14 Designing distance education for access and equity: Structure and content

Irene Duranczyk, Associate Professor, Postsecondary Teaching and Learning and Jeanne Higbee, Professor and Director of Graduate Studies, University of Minnesota

This session was about universal design. There were alot of good recommendations about how to make materials accessible. It was far too much for an information session. They used a prezi, but it was unnecessary since they treated the prezi like a ppt anyway. They also openly disagreed during the session which was uncomfortable. Bottom line is that this should have been a workshop, not an info session.

I-26 iPad apps for utility and learning

Jean Haefner, Adjunct Professor, University of Wisconsin-Stout and Joan Hanor, Professor, California State University San Marcos

Good duo. They did a nice job of going through apps and explaining where they apply. I downloaded the apps and need to investigate further. The one thing that I didn’t like was how they mentioned that this was for beginners. Wish this was in the description at the beginning.

Lightning Session

I got a chance to try my hand at this difficult task of explaining something in 10 minutes, using a timed ppt. I went too short at the beginning and too long at the end, but it must have been understandable because I had several questions when all were finished in my session. I talked about making accessible videos using free tools.

Did some more work in my room on courses and went out to an Afghan restaurant.

Friday

Meant to go to a few sessions but needed to make sure we were ready and in the room at the appropriate time in order to be ready. We were videoed and included as a part of the recordings for the conference. Here is the final prezi that we used: http://prezi.com/or0xc7nb6w7f/online-program-success-through-cross-unit-collaboration/. The session went really well. Kudos to both of my copresenters, Amy S and Gary H.

Keynote 2: Annual Conf on DT&L by Judy Brown

Awesome keynote that hit on the major theme of mobile. Here are a few notes.

1)Mobile

2)Learning

3)Today

4)Future

 

1) Mobile is…

-single most pervasive technology ever invented -fastest growing industry ever

 

Nomophobia- fear of being away from your device

 

Have to address mobile or u will disappear -phones -tablets

 

Healthcare & Language leading the way

NFL hands out iPad so they can wipe them

 

Connectivity is important

Access in pieces. Develop in pieces

 

2) Learning

Wesch- knowledgeable to knowledge-able

 

Learning Need

-1st time

-learn more

-remember*

-things change*

-something goes wrong*

 

Think Outside the Course

 

3) Today

Perishable knowledge should not be taught We’re just at the beginning of the Internet revolution – US gov’t

 

Ebbinghaus – spaced learning

 

Bring ppl together for smaller times over a longer span

 

Text4Baby.org

Team projects app

 

Snapguide

 

Coach’s Eye

 

Abilene Christian

 

EmpowerED

 

Purdue University

 

ARIS

 

MASLO

 

Gamification

 

4) Future

Pebble

 

Augmented Reality

 

Ford Taurus – plant grows

 

MotionX

 

MEMS

 

Pew Internet

 

Student Support

 

Campus Quad

 

UC Berkley – Journalism

 

University of Texas at Austin

 

Think Mobile First

 

Think big but start small

 

emerginged.com

Took off for home around 4 PM. Arrived home around midnight after a delay in Philly. Nice to have the opportunity to attend the conference. Glad to learn more and have the opportunity to network with those in the field.