This session introduces WordPress as one of many “blogging” platforms that allow individuals to easily create, maintain, and own an online space in which they can plant, cultivate, and grow their digital identity as a component of a larger approach to active life-long learning. Read the rest of this entry »

Drupal’s use is exploding in Higher Education. This session will introduce a new Drupal distribution designed to serve as a platform for building rich intranets for educational institutions. Read the rest of this entry »

As we develop instructional systems using Second Life and other virtual worlds, learners find droning lectures, stale slide presentations, and instructional methodologies that are 10 years behind the current thinking. This session will discuss and demonstrate learning by doing in proxy-based learning environments using constructivist and social learning theory approaches to teaching in Second Life and other virtual environments. Participants should bring laptops with Second Life to participate in demonstrations. Read the rest of this entry »

by Hugh MacLeod, Gaping Void (CC by-nc-nd)

Presenter: Chris Lott

We create, discover, discuss and exchange ideas, but what are they, really? How does an idea mean? And once we have one, can collaboration and creation of the highest order even co-exist, much less be meaningfully combined?

The contrary history of the idea of the idea, from Plato and the poets to the Perl Parrot, not only sheds new light on the contemporary world of memes and microblogs but provides valuable insight into fundamental– and too often forgotten– aspects of the practice of teaching and learning, such as fostering creativity, allowing for originality and making sense of individual insight in the connected and networked world.

One of the challenges of teaching an online course is to get students involved with the content beyond simply reading and discussing it. When students are separated from the instructor and each other by distance and time, how can they be effectively guided in arranging, participating in, and completing service-learning experiences? The presenter will share instructional strategies he has utilized to rise above such challenges. Read the rest of this entry »