Tag: Conferences

Virtually Connecting #DigPed 2017

So Excited to have taken part in this earlier this evening 🙂  Despite having a few technical difficulties with my laptop deciding to update itself just before and then my headphones having a bit of a wobbly I did eventually manage to join the folks from @VConnecting Got to spend some virtual time with some old friends and made some new ones too !

 

So I Got to spend some virtual time with some old friends and made some new ones too !  It’s so nice that the hangouts are live streamed and recorded and you really get a sense of being in the room even though it’s online.

You can check out the conversation in the You Tube video above.  It was really nice to get a flavour of the sort of stuff that has been going on at the five day Digital Pedagogy Lab in Fredericksburg … such a warm friendly feeling in the room.

We talked about communicating, messages , social learning, and the whole aspect of personal experience and ‘service’ and ‘context ‘ on line  …  and also how people might hear something different to what was actually meant … at least I think that’s what we talked about – I’ll have to watch it on playback as I was so excited about being there I missed a lot !

I’ve done a couple of VC sessions before and I love them – if you haven’t taken part I would highly recommend it …

@RozHussin who I hadn’t met before shared her collection of tweets and images that she has been creating over the last day or so and I was so inspired I wanted to have a little go myself  – here is my little attempt …

#altc September 2016 – My Highlights

 Debs Highlights from ALTc

 There were so many brilliant sessions to choose from and inevitably there were some that I wanted attend but couldn’t go to but from those that I did go to, here are some of my key highlights along with some of my attempts at the ‘doodly sketchee’ things…

29030598203_9d6d936889_m
Sheila MacNeill and Jim Emery explained all about their project as part of the JISC effective Learning Analytics Programme and their quest to find insights into the patterns of use of technology for learning and teaching in relation to student engagement.  They gave a fab outline of their endeavours and struggle with the complicated interweave of culture, processes, people and technology and the importance of having both sufficient time, resources and institutional investment in the project in order to make progress. The session was well attended and even had us joining the dots to find a paper unicorn !
One of the other sessions that I was so glad that I went to was David Hopkins session on Certified Membership of ALT.
CMALT is a  portfolio-based professional accreditation scheme developed by ALT to enable people whose work involves learning technology to: ◊ have their experience and capabilities certified by peers ◊ demonstrate that they are taking a committed and serious approach to their professional development – Taken From CMALT Prospectus 2014
 I have been thinking about starting compiling CMALT evidence for a while but I wasn’t quite sure where to start really so I found David’s session so helpful. David explained all about the CMALT guidelines and highlighted some useful pointers about looking at the CMALT Portfolio Open Register ( you need to be logged on to the ALT site to view) where some very kind people have shared their portfolios so you can have a look and see the sort of standard that you need to achieve …  He also mentioned the key things to keep in mind were to ‘Describe’, ‘Evidence’ and ‘Reflect’ and that it would be a good idea to start thinking about possible forms of evidence sooner rather than later… I’m hoping to start compiling my evidence shortly but am still wondering what to use for my portfolio.
29655058775_3bdefce252_m
David gives some really good additional advice and a summary of his talk here on his blog  ‘Dontwasteyourtime.co.uk‘ .  My little doodly thing also tries to capture some of the excellent hints and tips that he gave us !
I’m Secretary of the Open Education Special Interest Group so it was an absolute pleasure to have the opportunity to hold one of our face to face sessions at ALT this year. One of our lovely Chairs Teresa Mackinnon provided us all with cookies and cakes to keep us going. It was great to welcome some new members too this year and show case our new Community Space, Forum and Webinar series.  Our next forthcoming webinar is on Open Principles in Education – Building Bridges, Empowering Communities – presented by Suchith Anand University of Nottingham
file_000-3
If you would like to find out more about what we do at #openedsig please check out the links above !
 29655101115_8eb72de7ea_m29030578133_2a26cbb962_m

  Some other Doodly Stuff that I did at the conference ….

I ran out of paper when I was frantically scribbling down all the points from Jane’s talk – I’m sure I missed loads but you can check out her full talk here.

#ALTc Annual Conference 2016: Connect, Collaborate, Create

6 – 8 September 2016, University of Warwick, UK

I was thrilled to be able to attend ALTc last week.

Fun and Games Right from the Start !

It was a fabulous three days with lovely weather on a beautiful campus and it was great to catch up with loads of lovely people and make some new friends !  The fun and games started on the way there with the valiant efforts of the ALT Games and Learning SIG to get us all spotting green stuff. It proved quite a hit with people joining in and spotting loads of things on their travels.  There were plenty of opportunities to take part and connect with each other but the fact that we started doing this on the way there was a really nice touch.

 

Conference Themes

 The conference themes this year really ticked all the boxes for me in terms of my love of collaboration and the way that the ALT Games Special Interest Group encouraged everyone to get involved with all the fun and games added that extra sense of excitement
  • Connecting data and analytics to enhance learning and teaching: exploring possibilities and making links.
  • Collaboration and innovation in the open: taking risks, sharing lessons and the importance of open practice.
  • Creating new learning, teaching and assessment opportunities: play, experiment, discover, embed to enhance learner experience
  • Wildcard: Learning Technology is everywhere… any aspect of research, practice or policy work.

Key Notes

There was a real treat in store in terms of the keynotes and something for everyone.
I really enjoyed all the key notes.  It is such a privilege to be able to be present at ALT-c although of course you can also take part online.  There were quite a few things that made an impression on me and I have to say all of the presenters were equally engaging, entertaining and thought provoking. If you didn’t get the chance to go to ALT-c they were all recorded and are available on You Tube.  
There have also been some brilliant summaries of the key notes already ….  ( As usually happens loads of people have already been far quicker of the mark than me and written really fab posts of their take on the conference including a really interesting one by Susan Greig outlining her virtual attendance experience, and an excellent post by Sheila MacNeills who wins the prize for the most entertaining blog post title 🙂
You can read more brilliant posts in a very helpful compliation from the lovely folks at ALT …)
 I have to say however it was a first for me being reduced to an emotional blubbering wreck in a keynote by the fabulous Ian Livingstone CBE ! Please note that this was in a good way !   I had many an enjoyable hour or two reading Ian’s books when I was in school so this was a real trip down memory lane for me ….Ian’s talk made me laugh , was incredibly interesting and also managed to reduce me to tears at one point – it was simply brilliant …honestly  … if you want to find out just how brilliant check out the You Tube recorded version below.
The rest of the conference proved as great as the keynotes, great sessions, games, lovely people, good food, pretty campus ( with bunnies !) beautiful weather and a fab atmosphere all wrapped in the general warmth and loveliness of the folks at ALT ….what’s not to love ?
file_000-4

#OER16 – Friendly Faces

I’m loving this blog post about the recent OER16 Conference at Edinburgh on the ALT Site by the fabulous Frances Bell. I think it really captures the spirit of the Open Community and the friendly and warm welcome that I have been fortunate to receive since I have been involved.

OER Friends …. love it …

Friendly People Inside by https://www.flickr.com/photos/carianoff/ Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Image by Michael Carian Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0)

#openbadgesHE

Great Blog Post on the ALT Site  from the lovely Teresa Mackinnon 

openebdageshe-badges

Its nearly time for #OER16

6476689463_affd5e415b_b-756x250I’ve really enjoyed working on the organisation for this year’s OER Conference. Along with my fellow OER16 committee members I think we have arranged a pretty special conference.

Its so rewarding being in a team of  people drawn from all across the spectrum of open education who give their time freely and willingly for the common good. I’ve found the open education community to be so friendly and supportive and I just love it.

I’m really excited to hear our keynote and invited speakers ..

  • Jim Groom, Reclaim Hosting
  • Catherine Cronin, National University of Ireland, Galway
  • Emma Smith, University of Oxford
  • John Scally, National Library for Scotland
  • Melissa Highton, University of Edinburgh

and also there are so many parallel sessions that I am looking forward to that it is going to be a really, really hard choice to pick !

So if you are also heading to Edinburgh today for the… #OER16 Conference … (its not long now ) …I look forward to seeing you there ( you can however also participate virtually so I might just see you online ! )

I might also try and periscope a few bits and bobs so if you follow me on twitter watch out for the announcements …

 OER16 Open Culture

19th & 20th April 2016, University of Edinburgh, UK

The 7th Open Educational Resources Conference, OER16: Open Culture, will be held on the 19th-20th April 2016 at the University of Edinburgh.

The conference will be chaired by Melissa Highton, Director of Learning, Teaching and Web Services at the University of Edinburgh, and Lorna Campbell, OER Liaison at the University of Edinburgh and EDINA Digital Education Manager.

The vision for the conference is to focus on the value proposition of embedding open culture in the context of institutional strategies for learning, teaching and research focusing on:

  • The strategic advantage of open and creating a culture of openness.
  • Converging and competing cultures of open knowledge, open source, open content, open practice, open data and open access.
  • Hacking, making and sharing.
  • The reputational challenges of openwashing.
  • Openness and public engagement.
  • Innovative approaches to opening up cultural heritage collections for education.

The conference themes are:

  1. Strategic and reputational advantages of openness (including, but not restricted to, outreach, public engagement and return on investment).
  2. Converging or diverging cultures of openness (including open data, open science, open GLAM, open knowledge, open source, open content, open access).
  3. Hacking, making and sharing.
  4. Innovative approaches to opening up cultural heritage collections for education.