Minnesota e-Learning Summit (May 21 & 22, 2008)

I attended my first Minnesota e-Learning Summit May 21 & 22. Very good sessions to choose from and lots of Minnesota colleagues to connect with there.

I attended a half-day workshop on Wednesday afternoon -- Don't Get Too Comfortable - The Landscape of e-Learning is Changing by Lesley Blicker. This was a good overview of Web 2.0 and covered a number of tools. Many of the tools discussed I had heard about (and many I had experienced via this 23 Things on a Stick project!), but there are always more out there to learn about. Members of the audience contributed their successes/failures with certain tools throughout the workshop. A few things I wasn't familiar with that I would like to do more exploring on are: VoiceThread, RockYou (similar to PictureTrail), terminology AJAX, more work with Google Maps and overlays (re: one for Duane/Rose about oil consumption), Scott Lesley (sp.), EON Reality, and elgg.org. We spent some time talking about Second Life and she showed some cool YouTube videos -- Ohio University, art work in there, and Second Nature (the virtual periodical counterpart to Nature).

On Thursday, the day got off a great start with Keynote Speaker Dr.Michael Wesch: Human Futures for Technology and Education. I have heard so much about this man and watched his cool videos on YouTube, so it was wonderful to hear him speak! He focused on everything "user" -- user-generated, user-content, user-filtering, user-organization, user-distribution, user-commentary, user-ratings. He commented that his video Machine is Us/ing Us is based on his New Guinea experience -- and the pictures he showed from there and the related stories were both entertaining and enthralling. His references to a few authors I've heard of, but haven't read piqued my interest in looking them up again (Marshall McLuhan and Richard Katz). A librarian side-note: he's on the Board of Directors for Britannica.

Open Educational Resources was the first open session I attended. Interesting to see Winona State's EduCommons site and be reminded again to go out and look at other schools' online courses (MIT, JohnsHopkins, Tufts, U of Michigan, Utah State U). Also interesting to hear how they went about getting into ITunesU.

How Moodle Opens Doors to Extend Learning for All Students -- this was a great presentation and hit a real interest area of mine. The things that Eden Prairie High School has done using Moodle is a great boon for their school and will be a real asset for their students as they move into post-secondary education. It reminded me of what I was working to accomplish with my CTL grant a few years ago -- get high schools familiar with online learning before graduating from high school as they are so likely to encounter it after graduation -- whether as part of a post-secondary program or on-the-job training. Their classes are not fully online -- they are all blended with face-to-face classes -- but they are giving them a taste of what online classes are about.

Digital Learning Commons: A Conversation with the Learning Innovations Council -- this was more of an open forum discussion about the proposed work for a Minnesota Digital Learning Commons to include the work being done by many entities in Minnesota. It's being created to serve as a "statewide gateway for K-20 programs" and listed these areas of interest: K-12 Online Learning, College Planning & Readiness Projects, MnSCU Online, K-12 Online, U of M Digital Campus, Statewide Online Learning. Lots of talk about Merlot and the upcoming conference this August in Minneapolis. Discussion NROC and mention of the Developmental Education courses for college transition being created at North Hennepin.

This conference really got me energized for education and all the technology possibilities with it. I love the new ideas and reminders that were generated for me and will look to attend the next Minnesota e-Learning Summit!