ILT Champions Informal Conference Report

A report I wrote on the informal ILT Champions Conference has been published in the ALT Newsletter.

James Clay reports on the second ILT Champions Informal Conference, which took place at Gloucestershire College in April.

Read the full article.

e-Learning Stuff Podcast #021: Goldilocks, what’s that all about then?

So what do you understand by inclusion? Can we use learning technologies to improve inclusivity?

We discuss the ILT Champions Conference at Gloucestershire College, including the unconference format used and the learning spaces seen at the college. Do we need big names at conferences? Do we need keynotes? How do we make conferences financially viable?

We move onto planning. Do you plan your lessons a week, a month or a year in advance? Is planning a good thing or does it hinder creativity?

This is the twenty-first e-Learning Stuff Podcast, Goldilocks, what’s that all about then?

Download the podcast in mp3 format: Goldilocks, what’s that all about then?

Subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.

James is joined by Dave Foord, David Sugden and Nick Jeans.

Shownotes

• The ILT Champions Conference took place on the 21st April at Gloucestershire College.
• What is an unconference?
• The Ofsted report on VLEs.
• James’ keynote at the RSC Eastern Mobile Learning Event.
• James will be presenting a keynote at ASCILITE 2009 in Auckland, New Zealand.
• Ewan McIntosh was at the JISC Conference.
• James’ blog post on Twittering at conferences.

Informal Unconference

This week was the ILT Champions Conference at Gloucestershire College a national event that had ILT Champions from across the UK descending on the college to share what they do.

Unlike other conferences which have a strict agenda with keynotes, presentations and the odd workshop. We decided (well more I decided) to do something different, to run an unconference.

With this kind of event it is the delegates (the audience) decide the agenda and what will be presented.

I did consider that this may have one downside in that what we want to see and discuss might not always correlate with what we need to see and discuss. This is not so much about dictating what the audience should see, but ensure that they are informed about issues and subjects which they may have not considered fully or dismissed as not relevant (though it might be).

This is something I may consider for future events, combine free flowing sessions with some more formal presentations. This still brings up the question is how and who decides the content for the formal presentations.

ILT Champions Informal Conference

Today I travelled across the country to Oaklands College for the informal ILT Champions conference which was set up by Peter Trethewey.

I was presenting on micro-blogging and we looked at Jaiku, Twitter and Flickr.

We didn’t have a huge amount of time, but I feel we had a good discussion, even if we did go down a few ratholes.

In the afternoon in an open session I led, we discussed spaces, web 2.0 and aspects of Keynote.

I attended a very good PowerPoint session led by Dave Foord in which he covered the “magic” of PowerPoint. He made the very valid point that as a lot of staff are familiar with PowerPoint using it to improve the interactivity and engagement of learner, and this is probably a better option than trying to do similar things with new or different software. I also said I would link to his interactive heart PowerPoint presentation.

Earlier in the day, Richard Everett gave an illuminating overview on how Oaklands College were moving forward the college in the utilisation of e-learning.

One thing I like about Richard’s approach is that he focuses on the pedagogy and the learning, and using technology to support that process. With him, it is never just about the technology.

I enjoyed Ellen’s session on speech to text and text to speech technologies, her demonstration really showed the value of this software for learners.

Rob Englebright’s session on VLEs led to a really good discussion on how local colleges need to interact and engage with the LEA in their area and the LEA needs to do likewise.

Overall it was a really good day and a good idea. Thanks to all that helped to organise and run the event.

Hopefully there will be another day like it at another college.