2 posts tagged “ascilite”
Well - here I am. In Australia. In Melbourne. It has been a somewhat turbulent journey though and I am now sitting in not so sunny Geelong North....
Prior to my arrival in Australia, I was a little hasty in embracing wholeheartedly (and without reference to a map)
the great accommodation Kelly found that was within my budget. As the owner
of the motel assured us (and she is very nice)
there is indeed a Deakin Uni about 20 mins walk away...just happens to
be the Geelong Deakin Uni Satellite campus rather than the one where the conference is actually being held!
When I arrived on Sunday at Melbourne airport I began to be concerned after, having not found a shuttle bus to Geelong I hopped in a taxi which bowled along, and along.... About an hour and a half later and $AU 125.00 poorer, I arrived. Having found a map of Geelong I located the uni (great relief), but then could not find the correct road names - 'bugger' I thought, sulked, had a little tantie, and then set off to see if I could figure out what to do.
So, here I am about 100km away from where I should be, but luckily there is a train into Melbourne (takes about an hour - and it's only about $AU15 return, so it shouldn't blow the budget too much more) and then I'll hop on a tram to Burwood (another hour)...to where the conference is. Oops.
Geelong is rather attractive down by the Bay. It has an esplanade which I have run along several times now, on the first morning during sunrise which was breathtakingly beautiful. Unruffled sea, dyed blue, green and gold.
In a couple of days I am off to present at the ASCILITE conference in
Melbourne, Australia, and am really looking forward to it - should be
very interesting. Below is the full version of the paper that I will be
presenting, and if you click this link it will take you to the PowerPoint presentation on Slideshare. I'll give an overview of the conference once I've arrived
:-)
Please cite as: Owen, H. (2008). Learners re-shaping learning landscapes: New directions for old challenges? In Hello! Where are you in the landscape of educational technology? Proceedings ascilite Melbourne 2008. http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/melbourne08/procs/owen.pdf
Abstract:
The
sheer inevitability and momentum of global adoption of all forms of
technology has engendered a range of responses from wholehearted
welcome and exploitation, to denial and anger . Consequently, the
education landscape has been shifting, although not in the colossal,
earth-rending manner that was initially envisaged. Information,
Communication Technology Enhanced Learning and Teaching (ICTELT) has
progressively continued to evolve and mature, embedded in an increasing
foundation of research. One key benefit identified in this process is
the inclusiveness and fluidity that can be built into ICTELT
experiences, especially when they occur within a collaborative
community. This paper explores an example of how ICT was used to adapt
part of an existing ‘problematic’ curriculum in a way that helped
address central issues, encouraged collective learning and enabled
learners. In the Foundations programme at Dubai Men’s College (DMC)
students find the conventions of academic writing, and the requirement
to improve their proficiency, challenging, especially as they are also
struggling with the transition from secondary to tertiary education,
and their own changing identities. The framework of existing
Communities of Learning (CoL) was employed to introduce a blended,
scaffolded approach that aimed to assist students with academic
writing, as well as assisting their transition to more self-directed,
confident learning. The design and implementation of the interventions
is described, and a brief overview of the results of the associated
research study is given, along with recommendations for educators
wishing to adopt a similar approach.
