Educational Leadership Getting Personal at EdTech Posium 2017

Greetings from the opening of EdTechPosium Conference 2017 at UNSW/ADFA in Canberra. The theme of the conference is "Fitting the Tech to the Teaching", but Kim Tairi, Librarian, AUT in Auckland, started her keynote on a more personal note. She discussed how she came to be the Librarian of a university and issues with taking on a leadership role. Kim emphasized the human aspects of scholarships, proposing "Circles of Kindness". This gives my more confidence about taking the person approach in my presentaion on "Dogfooding" at 11:25 am.

The Best of EdTechPosium 2017 in Canberra

The EdTechPosium Conference 2017 on a theme of "Fitting the Tech to the Teaching", starts 30 October in the "Camouflage Building" at the Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra. Here are my picks from the two day program:

Day 1

10:50 “What are Blockcerts again?” — The role of communication in introducing new technologies for teaching at tertiary institutions. Rebecca Ng, Australian National University

11:25 Dogfooding: Learning to design for internationalstudents by being an international on-line student. Tom Worthington, Australian National University

13:10 Motivating and inspiring students to work collaboratively on assessment items. Dr Scott Rickard, University of Canberra


13:45 Moving from Face-to-Face to e-learning. William Batten, Department of Defence


14:55 Simulations, Gamification and Creative Problem Solving. Sudantha Balage, UNSW Canberra

15: 25 Opening professional learning in Australian higher education using Open Educational Practice: A cross-institutional collaboration. Emma Power, University of Southern Queensland, Dr Katie Freund, Karlene Dickens
& Janene Harman, Australian National University


16:00 eLearning 101 — professional development for busy academics and technology-enhanced learning educators. James Nicholson, Australian Catholic University

Day 2

10:40 “Let’s See What Happens”: Introducing students to interactive online tutorials. Stephanie Kizimchuk, University of Canberra

11:15 Four embeddings and a mural: OK2A — A course layout informed by Constructive Alignment delivering better blended learning. Roderick Huggett, Centre for
Defence and Strategic Studies

11:50 What have we GotS here? New ways for delivering Information Literacy at the University of Wollongong Library. Laura Lidden & Nick Zografos, University of Wollongong

14:45 ePortfolios — Where to next? Jenny Edwards, Australian National University, Shane Nuessler, University of Canberra

Learning to Design for International Students at EdTechPosium 2017 in Canberra on 30 October

Canberra's educational technology symposium "EdTechPosium 2017", is on 30 October. I will be speaking on "Dogfooding: Learning to Design for International Students by Being an International On-line Student". The event used to be called "MoodlePosium" and my talk is about Moodle, but it now covers all forms of  ed-tech for higher education, vocational education and training.

Dogfooding: Learning to Design for International Students by Being an International On-line Student, Tom Worthington, 11:25am.

Abstract

"In January Tom completed a MEd in Distance Education at Athabasca University (Canada) entirely on-line from Australia. He will discuss what it is like being an international student, with coursework via Moodle, collaborative work using Google Docs and Skype, a capstone-portfolio in Mahara and live defense via Adobe Connect. Tom argues that Dogfooding: actually experiencing what it is to be a student, is especially important for those creating distance education courses and programs. He will also discuss some of the wider implications of the availability of international on-line education for the Australian Higher Education industry."