G’Day
the last week in April and the first part of May was spent touring Japan. Worth a visit especially to the Peace garden and Museum at Hiroshima;Tokyo was something else!
Anyway back to the fold and dealing with the triffids that overtook the garden whilst away. Had to catch up on reviewing a few papers and beginning to think about helping with NZ SoTEL 2020; watch this space.
I was doing some’ decluttering’ of my computer and related devices and came across an email from January 2006 which announced the launch of e-learning Watch online. The ‘Watch’ took over from an original email posting called the ‘LearnTech Forum’ which started in 1992! The initial message was:
‘Just a reminder that this is a private email list which originally
started operation in 1992 as the LearnTech Forum. Members are here by request or invitation (or sometimes by accident 🙂
Each posting is aimed at taking a look at what is happening in
e-learning/blended learning/ and any new learning that pops out of the
woodwork and which involves some sort of digital dimension’.
26 years have gone by and the same still applies. Needless to say 90% of the links in the original posting 1992 no longer exist. Vern Smith still maintains the server… good lad! 
In the posting this month there are links to: Roadblocks and Adopting TEL, 2019 Horizon report,Survey of campus computing, Authentic assessment, Research development framework,Free stuff from teachers plus some to buy, Issues around Higher Order Tasks, Collaborating with Maslow, Putting the pedagogic horse in front of the technology cart, Worldwide conferences you have to go to, Important Conferences, New Zealand happenings and the odd one out
July not too far away methinks .
1.Understanding and Overcoming Institutional Roadblocks to the Adoption and Use of Technology-Enhanced Learning Resources in Higher Education. An interesting read considering the growing interest in Technology Enhanced learning.
Having read the above (or before if you so wish) have a look at the Carnegie Mellon’s Simon Initiative.The intent is clear and the outcomes appear to be getting lot of traction.
2. Authentic Instruction and Assessment:Common Standards for Rigor and Relevance in Teaching Academic Subjects. This was produced in 2007. It’s a very interesting read and although focussed on the USA teaching scene ,the approaches, issues and suggestions can in essence, be applied to any country. Worth spending the time reading through and considering the relevance of the material in education today.
3. Vitae Researcher Development Framework (RDF) 2011. A very useful framework for those undertaking research.
4. The latest Horizon report from Educause [took over after the demise of New Media Consortium’s (NMC)]. Always worth reading to learn abut what the ‘experts’ consider to be the key trends and then seeing if anything actually happens or if you are way beyond the pale! Barriers to technology adoption is a hardy annual.
5. Teachers pay teachers or in many cases teachers give stuff away for free. Have a peruse of this Website. Highly likely there is something here to contribute to your students’ learning. Many free resources and quite a number that cost very little.
6. Collaborating with Maslow. Useful article looking at the influence of Maslow on teaching and learning. Where do you fit?
7.Is That Higher-Order Task Really Higher Order? Interesting discussion piece which includes links to Depth of Knowledge levels. (Haven’t come across this very often ) Useful tool to complement Blooms taxonomy? Might stimulate the thought processes and give you a few ideas. Lots of other interesting stuff on the Website.
8.Educational Technology & Education Conferences 41 June to December 2019
Clayton R. Wright. This is a useful and interesting list of conferences across the globe.Peruse and decide which you will attend or present at, and heed the warnings from Clayton! The link is hosted on the Website of Stephen Downes.
9. 2018 CAMPUS COMPUTING The 29th National Survey of Computing and Information Technology in American Higher Education. Where does your institute fit/ Does if have the same issues highlighted in this report? A nicely constructed and informative report well worth reading to ascertain and maybe confirm that the data presented would not be hugely different for where you work. What do you do about it?
10. Putting the pedagogic horse in front of the technology cart. A nicely written opinion piece from Michael Sankey, worth pursuing. I do like Michael’s modern interpretation of ‘pedagogy’. However, I’m with Angela McFarlane who once stated that ‘pedagogy gets in the way of learning’; Way to go!
11. Conferences
11.1 ALT Annual Conference 2019
3–5 September 2019, University of Edinburgh
11.2 HEAd’19: Call for Papers:
5th International Conference on Higher Education Advances
June 26 to 28, 2019. Valencia, Spain
11.3. Blackboard Teaching and Learning Conference for ANZ Call for Papers is now open.
The dates are 20 to 22nd August 2019, in Sydney, Australia
11.4. Ascilite: 36th International Conference on Innovation, Practice and Research in the Use of Educational Technologies in Tertiary Education. In Singapore.
11.5 World Conference on Online Learning 2019
The 28th ICDE World Conference on Online Learning taking place in Dublin is one of the largest and most prestigious international conferences in the area. Gráinne Conole and Mark Brown are involved in this one so bound to be useful and informative 🙂
11.6Call for papers: The 10th International Conference on Learning Analytics & Knowledge (LAK20). Celebrating 10 years of LAK: Shaping the future of the field: 23-27 March 2020, Frankfurt, Germany
12. New Zealand Initiatives
12.1 The new peer-reviewed open access journal PJTEL: Pacific Journal of Technology Enhanced Learning, has announced the first call for papers for the journal.
The journal aims to promote informed use of technology in learning and teaching—the scholarship of technology enhanced learning (SoTEL). In particular, empirical research that grows current understanding and application of the affordances of technology for improved pedagogical practice and student learning outcomes.
Submit a paper for publishing in the inaugural issue. Submissions are due by 31 May 2019, with a publication timeline in July 2019.
If you are also keen to be a reviewer please go to
WATCH this space for upcoming announcements for
SoTEL 2020, the third Symposium on Scholarship of Technology Enhanced learning. Visionary stuff!
12.2 Half-day, free, Mahara Hui event at the University of Waikato
13. Odd one out: Security of private information and the devices you use should always be a top priority if you are to avoid being compromised online. This site states: Follow these six simple steps to gain peace of mind and more control over your online security’. You may know it all already, however revising and checking doesn’t do any harm 🙂
Keep your mind and doors open
Remember it took quite a while before Snow White realised that 6 out of the 7 dwarfs were not Happy!
Enjoy the weather in June
Richard
Richard Elliott
The Eternal Macademic
Auckland
New Zealand