Teaching and Learning with Technology Conference

The countdown is on- 6 days, 20 hours and 40 minutes until the conference begins. This is the first year that I have planned our annual conference. Not only is this the first year of planning, but the first for other aspects of the conference. This year we sent out a call for presentations and ended up with some great responses. We are also inviting faculty from other Virginia Universities and Colleges. This year, so far, 98 people are registered. My goal was 100, which I think can be reached by next Thursday.

We also invited exhibitors from off campus. We will have 8 participants including Adobe, Apple, Blackboard, eInstruction, Smarthinking, Taphere, Venture Interactive, and The Center for Faculty Innovation (a JMU exhibit.)

I think all of the hard work and planning are finally coming together. I hope this entry is somewhat informing because I'm not sure that I could have focused on a different blog topic as the conference is taking over my brain.

Please visit our wonderful TLT Conference website for more information! (I can't take credit for designing it, but it sure looks great to me!!)

Social Learning Environments

I think that the use of Social Learning Environments may be more easily implemented into higher education. As we discussed in class, due to internet restrictions it much more difficult to incorporate social learning tools in the K-12 environment. In fact, higher education has already begun to experiment with social networking.

The Center for Instructional Technology is hosting it's 4th annual Teaching and Learning with Technology conference this October. The theme is Social Learning Environments. Our keynote speaker is Gardner Campbell from University of Mary Washington. He will address how educators can embrace new online tools and incorporate them effectively into education. For more on Gardner's thoughts you can visit his blog.

As for my own thoughts, I think that social learning environments have great potential for education. As educators, we know that students learn and make connections when they are actively learning and working collaboratively. This is exactly what social networking provides for students. For example, blogs, wikis, and virtual worlds allow students to work together collaboratively. Distance and possibly time (depending on the technology) are not an issue. An English instructor at JMU uses a wiki for his students to write collaboratively.

I think we are just beginning to scratch the surface with social learning environments that are accessible to students. There are probably more opportunities to use these technologies that we can even imagine. These opportunities will continue to grow as technology advances.

Web Page Design

Web page design is a tough topic. I think there are general rules that are good to follow but it is hard to meet everyone's needs and preferences. I have created several web pages in the past and there always seem to be new best practices each time. Here are a few general rules that I'll include-

• Easy to use, organized navigation (simple, easy to move back and forth and understandable)
• Easy to read- color of background and text (In the past I was steered towards white or very light colored backgrounds. Now there are dark backgrounds with light colored text that look very professional.)
• Simple layout (page is not overwhelming with too much text or too many graphics, pages should not include lots of animated graphics that detract from the message)

I mentioned everyone's needs above in my introduction. I think it is important but difficult to address everyone's needs. We should be aware of "universal design" and try to make our pages easily used by everyone, including design and elements that help those with disabilities.

Using Technology Effectively and Resources

I guess I will just jump in with some useful technology resources. JMU is a member of EDUCAUSE and the New Media Consortium (NMC.) I have been able to find lots of useful resources from both sites.

The CIT is focusing on modeling effective pedagogy when using instructional technologies. Both the EDUCAUSE and NMC provide useful information in support of this endeavor.

I'll focus for a moment on modeling effective instructional methods. I have taught two workshops in the past couple of weeks focused on creating an engaging discussion board for students. I think both workshops went well. As trainers of technology, I think it is important not to get wrapped up in the "technical how to," but to help educators choose appropriate technologies that support their learning objectives.