Teaching with Technology Conference

I participated in the Teaching with Technology Conference at UMD, College Park this last week. I was trying to explain to my father-in-law the different facets of what I do and I narrowed it down to three different kinds of conferences: Digital/Technology, Literature, and Teaching/Education. I’m sure there are others I’m missing, but this is what I told him. This one seemed to me, to be, as described in its title primarily about Teaching–so I have had to add another category to the blog: Teaching. How Could I have missed this one?
Of primary interest, I thought, was the gregarious keynote speaker, Professor Curtis Bonk (who quite hilariously is the teacher-with-the-mostest–he wore costumes, played movie and music bits, gave out candy, and had a crowd of veteran educators pretty much on their toes in rapt attention). His talk (which I gather he has given quite a few times) “The Perfect E-Storm” in parts 1 and part 2 focuses on the “perfect storm” represented by “emerging technology, enormous learner demand, enhanced pedagogy, and erased budgets.” Some of the resources, he maintained, that would be the most useful in this upcoming and present crisis focused on reusable objects, games, and tools.
So, the links I acquired from Dr. Bonk are the following:
Objects:
Merlot.org–“MERLOT is a free and open resource designed primarily for faculty and students of higher education. Links to online learning materials are collected here along with annotations such as peer reviews and assignments.”
Careo.org–“CAREO is a project supported by Alberta Learning and CANARIE that has as its primary goal the creation of a searchable, Web-based collection of multidisciplinary teaching materials for educators across the province and beyond. CAREO (Campus Alberta Repository of Educational Objects) is being undertaken by the the Universities of Alberta, Calgary and Athabasca University in cooperation with BELLE (Broadband Enabled Lifelong Learning Environment), CANARIE (Canadian Network for the Advancement of Research in Industry and Education), and as a part of the Campus Alberta initiative.”
ADL and SCORM–The Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) aims to foster creation of reusable learning content as “instructional objects” within a common technical framework for computer and Web-based learning. SCORM describes that technical framework by providing a harmonized set of guidelines, specification and standards. Borrowing from work of other specification and standards bodies, ADL developed a model for creating and deploying e-Learning.
Games:
www.there.com–a free online community in which you can create avatars, etc.
Tools:
Microsoft XP shared source and “shared documents”
Macormedia Breeze and –virtual meeting software/application.
(he’s from Indiana after all)and Moodle–course management systems
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