The sessions by themselves varied wildly in quality, depth and usefulness – some were very good, polished, professional pieces of research well presented others less so. The range was wide and there was pretty much something for everyone – even it took four full days to get through it all.
I’ve been attending conferences similar to this for some time now, a lot of them from a private sector, learning and development perspective and others from academic/HEFCE standpoints. The one thing they have in common is a group of people convinced by the power to improve learning and training outcomes through the use of technology. The commitment is terrific and the work universal; from the Middle East to Asia to North and South America and Africa, an awful lot of people are committed to leveraging new technology for the good of the individual and society in general. It’s very encouraging to see.
For the record my areas of interest centred on the web 2.0 technologies and their application in a learning context. And here’s the thing; there were an awful lot of sessions devoted to this in one form or another. And another thing, as much as there is talk about the technology, much of the conversations was about which teaching models best support/exploit these technologies. I guess that for me was new – it signalled a move into a next phase and one in which the conversation is not about should we use these technologies to improve learning and research outcomes, but how. I think this is tremendously significant; I think that from a selfish point of view it suggests that the ground will be better prepared in 2008 for conversations with our subscribers about how the InTouch platform might be employed in their institutions.
So, no one paper especially stood out for me this at this conference but I think I learned something more useful and profound than that; educators and academics around the world are moving towards a different model of teaching and learning in a networked 21st century world. It isn’t going to slow down, indeed to nick that tired old phrase of William Gibson, “The future has arrived, it’s just not evenly distributed”.
This move will have a profound impact on what we do so we should get on with the business of figuring it out.
Filed under: conference, elearn2007, elearning, emerald, learning, reports
