Archive for the 'online conference' category

Writing and reference management seminar

Aug 02 2011 Published by under online conference

There has been a lot of interest among doctoral student researchers, and others, about the various programs for academic writing and reference management. These include EndNote, Papers (Papers2), Mendeley, Scrivener, Evernote, and many more. Some time ago, I suggested an online seminar be organised, and there was a good response from participants in the #phdchat Twitter group. I have been in touch with reps from some of the companies, and they are interested in participating. A lot of what we need is already present, particularly in recorded introductory and instructional videos.

Based on the interest and feedback, here is the approach I am taking!

1. Develop an initial list of topics, questions, concerns from potential participants. This is where we are at now, and your input is needed. Please provide as comments to the blog, or email me at tony ‘at’ tonyratcliffe.com.

2. Identify and list short introductory videos on products that should be viewed in advance of a discussion. I also want to identify the instructional videos for more detailed help. I’m asking that reps provide this as a comment or by email.

3. I will ask product reps to provide a written blurb on how their products can help. In particular, I like the theme of ‘how do you play nicely with other products, or do a great job on your own?’ Once we have the topics, questions, and concerns from potential participants, these might help guide the reps.

4. Host a live ‘synchronous’ hour of short presentations, questions, and answers.

5. Continuing asynchronous discussion forum.

6. The development can be in stages, leading up to an online session in, perhaps, September.

Again, your input is requested and needed. The main guidance I want to give is that this is to be a ‘how to play nice’ seminar. There will be opinions, for sure, but let’s focus on the place that each product has for some of us. What works for one may not work for another!

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Workshop: Collaborative Strategic Foresight

Jun 28 2011 Published by under online conference

I want to give a last minute push of information for this workshop, so I’ve made it a blog post. Hope you can join. It refers to 10:30 a.m. GMT, but I believe it is actually 10:30 British Summer Time as noted elsewhere. That will be 3:30 a.m. for me in Edmonton, Canada. See you there!

Title of the workshop:
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Collaborative Strategic Foresight:
ELKS Training Workshop in collaboration with the Creating Academic Learning Futures Project

Date and time:
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29 June 2011 from 10:30 am GMT – 12:30 GMT

Introduction to the workshop:
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Collaborative innovation requires organisations to capture and merge the visions of the future of key individuals and groups. Anticipating, exploring and creating alternative futures cannot emerge from ‘one right answer’. For meaningful contributions to strategy it is necessary to consider multiple views of the present and the past occurring in multiple systems. This workshop will introduce participants to the use of collaborative techniques for strategic foresight in education, developed by the Creating Academic Learning Futures Project.

Workshop Outline:
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This 2-hours workshop will introduce a model for creating and exploring ideas about the future and translating them into action plans and strategies. The model’s focus is on creativity and student engagement. The workshop will begin with a presentation of the model and its techniques, followed by exercises for hands-on experience of strategic foresight.

Who should attend:
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This hands-on workshop is relevant to educators, students, managers, policy-makers and education and training professionals, whose work requires collaborative decision-making for the future through understanding and generating shared agendas. It will be valuable for individuals who need to develop new skills for analysing, presenting and negotiating future visions in education and training settings, public policy or project management.

What you’ll learn:
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Participants will learn how to use creative strategic foresight for collaborative building of ideas for the future; accurately capturing feasibility requirements; maintaining the richness of data by managing its complexity.

How can this new knowledge be applied:
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Participants will be able to use the practical skills from this course for strategy development, increasing student engagement and employability skills, building a corporate or institutional memory, encouraging group creativity, resolving conflicts and effectively presenting reasoning about the future.

Presented by:
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Dr. Sandra Romenska, Beyond Distance Research Alliance, University of Leicester, UK.

About Sandra
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Dr Sandra Romenska is a Research Associate with the Creating Academic Learning Futures (CALF) research project at the University of Leicester. Her research interests are in the areas of futures studies, innovation and institutions, entrepreneurship, students participation, learning and teaching technologies, international and comparative education. She has an MA from the University of Warwick in Educational Research and a PhD from the University of Oxford.

Joining instructions:
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Please click on this URL to enter the seminar room: https://connect.le.ac.uk/elksseminar14/

Moderators:
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Palitha Edirisingha and Simon Kear, Beyond Distance Research Alliance, University of Leicester, UK.

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How PhD students use and perceive technologies

Apr 20 2011 Published by under online conference

For the recent “Learning Futures Festival 2011: Follow the Sun” conference, the four students (Brenda, Ali, Natalie, and me) were invited (or commanded, perhaps) to present. After all, our department was one of the hosts. We decided to present on a few technologies with which we were familiar, and one section of the presentation was designed to raise question about each. I presented about #phdchat on Twitter, while Brenda discussed Excel versus RefWorks, and Natalia’s was on NVivo. Ali raised the healthy skepticism questions. You can read my post and find relevant links on the Beyond Distance Research Alliance blog:

I followed the sun

Also, check out Simon Kear’s post:

The sun sets on our successful e-learning conference

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Follow the Sun, Learning Futures Festival Online 2011

Mar 08 2011 Published by under online conference

From April 13 to 15, 2011, the Beyond Distance Research Alliance, at the University of Leicester (where I am enrolled in a PhD programme) is co-hosting the 6th annual Learning Futures Festival, Follow the Sun, with the Australian Digital Futures Institute. The early bird registration has been extended to March 25. This conference will run for 48 hours over two full days, with eight hours hosted in each of UK, then USA, then Australia, and then one more cycle through the countries. As I understand it, unless you wish to watch recorded sessions, it will be interesting to plan the participation, sleep, and other activities around the non-stop conference. I’m glad I work and study from home!

Information is available on the website

Poster: Follow the Sun

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Socialization can be better online

Mar 19 2010 Published by under online conference

I was just reading a posting from Terese Bird on the Beyond Distance Research Alliance Blog, from the University of Leicester: Online Seminars: Better than being there… She wrote of a recent hybrid seminar, and I was smiling as I read the start of the second paragraph:

“Before the seminar started, people came into the room pretty much on time, spoke politely to those sitting nearby, sat down and individually quietly prepared for the seminar. In the Wimba online room, people logged in as much as 45 minutes early, and, using the chat, introduced themselves and talked to each.”

First, I have to wonder if they remembered an essential rule for the physically present group: adult learners need their coffee. Honestly, from years of teaching and attending courses, seminars, and the like, I found that coffee seemed to change the room when stranger first come together. Perhaps it was the smell, and more likely it was the gathering at the coffee pot, but it was essential to ensure people started to mix. That aside, the post was a great example of the socialization that can occur online. She wrote more about the pre-seminar and seminar communication that is worthy of reading, including the back channel that some of the non-virtual attendees also participated in from their laptops.

I would like you to note the project that resulted in podcasts being made by both group present and online, ultimately shared so all could see. After being at a another hybrid conference where the virtual audience was not integrated with the ones at the conference centre, this is a welcome approach noted by Terese. She concluded, “we have demonstrated that e-conferencing offers special benefits: more and freer discussion, faster engagement with the presentations; access to all other computer- and internet-based resources close at hand during the session, and money, time and carbon saved from avoiding travel.”

Link to blog post from the Beyond Distance Research Alliance

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Not to forget my Second Life

Mar 14 2010 Published by under online conference

My first avatar was created in Second Life in June 2007, followed by a second in October the same year. I’ve had periods of considerable involvement and absences of months at a time. A conference over the past two days provided a reminder of what I am missing when not there.

It was the 3rd Annual “Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education” conference, scheduled for 175 sessions in 5 languages over a 48 hour period, March 12-13, 2010. Most enjoyable was the opportunity to meet so many wonderful educators interested in the use of virtual worlds academically. Second Life and other virtual worlds are not the answer to all teaching, and they create their own challenges. However, it is wonderful to hear the stories of how these platforms have led to specific successes in engaging learners and extending the boundaries of more traditional classroom and online learning.

I have decided that it is time to start spending more time networking with virtual educators, and Second Life is certainly a place to do it. After all, if they are in Second Life, they are doing it and not just talking about it!

As I was writing this post, I visited the Etopia Eco Village and took a Gondola ride :-)

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Virtual Edge Summit, Day 1

Feb 23 2010 Published by under online conference

Yesterday was the first day of Virtual Edge Summit 2010. Live in Santa Clara, California, it was a hybrid event with virtual participation. My interest was from an e-learning conference perspective. While this conference covered vitual events in general, there was certainly representation from the education community. As reminded by one speaker, “an event is an event is an event” (Alex Sapiz, George P. Johnson Company), so this information to be gained was to be helpful for different types of vitual events. This summit is presented virtually in a 3D environment where you can attend as an avatar, interact with other virtual participants, and watch the live presentations on screens.

Big names in the industry represented the platform solutions and a wealth of delivery expertise. With an opportunity for everyone to attend at no charge after completion of a short questionnaire (I’m not sure that was even enforced), the bill was obviously paid by the sponsors. Of course they should get their recognition, but it was not a commercialized day. There were great speakers sharing their knowledge and experience, and I enjoyed listening to Byron Reeves of Media X Partners Program, Stanford University, speaking about the use of games such as World of Warcraft (WOW) in training, work, and event areas for engagement and collaborative experiences. As one whom has not got into WOW, it certainly gave me ideas to consider.

One of the takeaways is that virtual events can be very costly, and they require as much planning as others. It was noted by participants that the planning for this summit did not provide much integration of the physical and virtual audiences. In fact, kudos were sent to Paul Salinger of Oracle for his specific recognition of the virtual attendees late in the day.

For future events, plans do need to include a virtual component to such things as the networking with those on site and a virtual component to the end of day wine and cheese, along with integration of the virtual audience during question periods. For some sessions, all that could be seen was a feed from another room.

All in all, the day was a success and worth attending. The price was certainly right. It was interesting to have it pointed out that we are still pioneers in the virtual delivery. True, while I have attended online conferences, this is the first one in 3D that I recall, and it is a big commitment over a 2 day period. This is Day 2, commencing at 8:00 PST, and there is more than enough room for others to attend. On Twitter, the primary hashtag is #ve10.

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Attending Virtual Edge Summit 2010, Feb 22/23

Feb 20 2010 Published by under online conference

It actually started as what appeared to be a spam comment on my other blog, as the same comment was added to two different posts. However, I still took a closer look. The offer was attendance at the Summit, virtually or in person, free if a short survey is completed.

I have registered, and I’m looking forward to participating online. It looks like some intresting sessions. I know we are going to learn about various products, but that’s how you get vendor sponsorship. The main hosting seems to be on 3DXplorer, requiring no software download. I have created my avatar, so I’m ready to go. This may be similar to the Second Life experience, but without the software.

Given a little more notice, I might have attended in Santa Clara, but the vitual opportunity fits well with my interest in e-learning and learning technologies.

We have to keep in mind that what can be labled as ‘spam’ is often of relevance. I’m actually pleased I received and read the announcement! Look for more comments from me as the Summit progresses.

Virtual Edge Summit 2010

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Conference Time: Learn Trends 2009

Nov 15 2009 Published by under online conference

I enjoy conferences for both the learning and the socialization, and I certainly understand the attraction of actually being there. Of course, time and budget prevent this happening too often for many.

As far as content goes, attending online makes perfect sense. I won’t go into the benefits, as readers are likely well aware. I’m not sure of the level of engagement for many online, though, as distractions are bound to occur and it is easy to turn away to deal with them. We can think of the sessions being recorded, but do we actually go back to listen to all? I know I don’t. It may help when conferences preent only small periods of time online rather than the whole day. This can be easier to schedule.

Learn Trends 2009, The Corporate Learning Trends & Innovations Conference, strikes me as being different as an online only event. The schedule shows packed days starting at 7:00 a.m. Pacfic Time (8:00 Mountain Time here in Edmonton), this Tuesday to Thursday, November 17 to 19, 2009. As a first for me, I have planned to attend all of the sessions over the 3 day period, with nothing scheduled other than a vehicle service during the opening session. Of course, mobile internet will work (laptop), and I will test to see if I might be able to listen on a Blackberry. (I would appreciate any input on the Blackberry question.)

I’m looking forward to the conference, and I hope to see you there!

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