Current Practices and Trends

Gina Bennett June 3, 2009

Gina Bennett June 3, 2009

Welcome!
Introductions
Outline:
General conversation about educational technology The situation at COTR The situation in BC The situation in Canada Your situations Trends on the horizon

Conversation about Educational Technology

What is educational technology, how is technology

used for delivery & communication in your institutions?

What are your institutional, regional or national

priorities for educational technology?

Can you describe some institutional issues that

technology might address? For example, extremely large classes, poor or spotty attendance, working students, need to reach remote learner audiences.

Educational technology quiz

1. The personal computer first appeared on the market in the 1970s a. True b. False 2. A new kind of copyright licence that allows for easier sharing of materials is called a. EasyShare b. Creative Commons c. GPL d. Copyleft 3. The country with the most internet users per capita (2008 info) is: a. Canada b. United States c. South Korea d. Greenland 4. The earliest recorded resister to educational technology was a. Moses b. Plato c. Alexander the Great d. Leonardo de Vinci

The situation at COTR

Issue #1: remote, disperse learners, need for distance

delivery (Moodle)
Issue #2: remote, disperse learners, need for live-time

communication (Adobe Connect) & alternatives (Elluminate's vRoom, WizIQ & Dimdim)
Issue #3: gradual switch from mostly wired to mostly

wireless connectivity needs on campus

Issue #4: not really ENORMOUS classes, but poor

participation in some of them (clickers)

The situation in BC
More & more online students, pushing the envelope for what can

be delivered at a distance (RWSL)

Many institutions offering online courses, extending the

provincial campus to internally overlapping boundaries; greater need for coordination, articulation, transfer etc. (BCcampus ) starting to see ourselves as players in the wider global educational community (increased emphasis on Creative Commons licensing, new funding envelope for open textbooks , encouragement of projects with external partners)

Online learning extending beyond provincial boundaries,

More and more international students

The situation in Canada

We dont have a national education system so there is

nothing really coordinated at this level

Increasing bandwidth is a national priority, especially

to northern & remote areas

Keen interest nationally in increasing access to

communications technology (but not lowering the cost!), using technology for education, developing leading edge uses of bandwidth etc. (e.g. Inukshuk wireless: http://www.inukshuk.ca/ )

Your situations
General discussion about educational technology

trends and issues in Ecuador & Kenya

Trends: the Horizon Report

You can find the 2009 report

here: http://wp.nmc.org/horizon2009/ Note the main trends: Mobile technology, cloud computing, geo-everything, personal webs. Other trends: democratization of information, gaming in education

Personal web
the personal web: have a look at whats

possible in iGoogle Also have a look at Google Groups (http://groups.google.ca/) . How hard is it to create an online course??? What do you think this means for educators? For educational institutions?

Challenges ahead for us all

Need for the new literacies
A need to use new information, in new ways Changing ideas of what constitutes scholarship ( and

who gets access to it!) More emphasis on formal assessment & accreditation Education distributed more widely, in more ways, to more people

Democratization of information
Yet another key trend identified by the

Horizon Report: collective intelligence Multiple, equally correct answers to questions Have another look at Wikipedia: is it really so amateur?