Madison, WI: 25th Annual Conference on Distance Teaching & Learning

I am in Madison for the 25th Annual Conference on Distance Teaching & Learning. It is a beautiful day and later this afternoon I will be presenting a blended workshop. Looking forward to meeting with as many people here as possible and filling my brain with information.

Curt Bonk Keynote on Livescribe Pulse

Curtis Bonk gave an energizing keynote presentation at the 24th Annual Conference on Distance Teaching & Learning in Madison, Wisconsin. I have uploaded the Livescribe Pulse recording of “Technology trends opening access to education worldwide: Now, we all can learn!” The Pulse pen records audio and synchronizes this recording with what I noted in my journal. The shared recording is converted to an Adobe Flash file. You can view the recording on my Livescribe community pages. WE-ALL-LEARN Web Searching in the World of e-Books (i.e., Darwin) E-Learning and Blended Learning Availability of Open Source and Free Software (e.g., Moodle) Leveraged Resources and OpenCourseWare (e.g., MIT) Learning Object Repositories and Portals (i.e., shared content) Learner Participation in Open Info Communities (YouTube) Electronic Collaboration and Interaction (sync and async) Alternate Reality Learning (Online Massive Gaming, Simulations, and Virtual Worlds; e.g., Second Life) Real-Time Mobility and Portability (e.g., iPhone) Networks of Personalized Learning (Blogs, RSS) 15 Predictions Five Billion “Have-Nots” Have at It! Emergence of Lifelong Super E-Mentors/Coaches Quarter-Century Learning Clubs Terabyte Learning Access Points The Veneration of Learning Personalization+ Portfolios The Selection of Global Learning Partners The Shared Learning Era Teaching-Learning Perpetuities Teachers, Teachers The Rise of the Super Blends Self-Determined Humans Free Learning Zones Authentic Learning Amalgamations Alexandrian Aristotles I was pretty impressed with the quality of the recording. However, I have noticed a couple of things I would like to change: Typically I take a second or two to cogitate after I hear something profound. Thus, clicking on my notes plays back the audio from a few moments after something of importance has been said. It would be nice to easily jog back 10 seconds from that point (rather than messing with the navigation). I wish I could charge/sync the pen with a mini-USB cable. I forgot to bring the dock to Madison. The pen’s batteries ran out at the end of the first day (a better battery indicator would be nice too). The pen does not have a clip. If I set it down on a fat surface it does have a tendency to roll (typically covering the microphones in the process). UPDATE: PDF handouts from the keynote presentation can be found on Curt Bonk's TraningShare website.

First full day of conference

Full day of events at the 24th Annual Conference on Distance Teaching & Learning. Managed to pack in as many presentations and workshops as I could following a 6:45 a.m. working breakfast (scary). Met many interesting folks. Filled my brain with ideas. Still testing the Pulse Livescribe pen here - unfortunately I neglected to bring a charger with me and the pen died during a Penn State presentation.... Somewhat ironic. Curtis Bonk kindly agreed for me to share my Livescribe recording. This should be up Friday night/Saturday morning. Hope the audio came through.

24th Annual Conference on Distance Teaching & Learning

Arrived in scenic madison for the 24th Annual Conference on Distance Teaching & Learning. Looking forward to a great convention.

Distance Teaching and Learning

This week I am at the 23rd Annual Conference on Distance Teaching and Learning in Madison, WI. Like all conferences there is a mixture of good and bad. Here are some of the useful resources I have now become aware of (in no particular order): AMSER AMSER (the Applied Math and Science Education Repository) is a portal of educational resources and services built specifically for use by those in Community and Technical Colleges but free for anyone to use. Similar to Merlot. Automatic Sync Technologies, LLC Automated captioning server for educational videos. HippoCampus Monterey Institute for Technology and Education has some great online resources. "The goal of HippoCampus is to provide high-quality, multimedia content on general education subjects to high school and college students free of charge." The Internet Scout Project A compendium of quality online resources. The weblog is available as an RSS feed. myMaps myMaps is a curriculum mapping application designed to assist college and university departments in meeting their accreditation requirements. SoftChalk LessonBuilder Web lesson editor for online classes. Wall Street Journal The Wall Street Journal was in attendance and looking for new subscribers. They have a an online PDF Guide to Stock Markets that could be useful in some classes. They also have a series of faculty-developed weekly reviews that you can sign up for at https://info.wsj.com/professor/educatorsReviews.html