Internet Learning Future

Matthew Allen from Curtin University of Technology will be giving two free talks at ADFA in Canberra, 17th July, 2009. The morning seminar is for those with online teaching experience and the afternoon for those with an online learning design focus:

Innovative education online: Ideas for the future of learning and the Internet
An Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC) Workshop with Associate Professor Matthew Allen, 2009 ALTC Teaching Fellow, Head, Department of Internet Studies, Curtin University of Technology (http://www.netcrit.net)
Venue: LT 12, Lecture Theatre North (Building 32), UNSW@ADFA, Northcott Drive, Canberra
Map: http://www.unsw.adfa.edu.au/images/adfamap.pdf
Date/Time: 0930 – 1230 Friday 17th July, 2009 (a light lunch will be provided at 1230)

Workshop Description:
Web 2.0 technologies provide significant opportunities to create novel approaches for student learning that go well beyond the dull, artificial world of Blackboard, WebCT and other learning management systems. Web 2.0 connects student learning to the realities of online knowledge networks, content creation and create opportunities for innovative and authentic assessment.

This workshop will provide the chance for you to explore what’s possible, contribute from your own experience, and collectively build a vision for new, effective approaches to online learning. Focusing on the link between these technologies, and pedagogic principles, the workshop will help you discover what is possible, consider how it challenges our ideas about learning, and develop new approaches for your own teaching practice. You will be provided with a framework of ideas, focused discussion
opportunities, and examples from the current research work of the presenter on online learning.

The presenter, Associate Professor Matthew Allen, is a nationally recognised university educator, having received an Australian Award for University Teaching in 2000 and more recently being awarded an Australian Learning and Teaching Council Teaching Fellowship. This workshop forms part of his fellowship project, Learning in Networks of Knowledge (http://altc-link.wikidot.com/).

Objectives:
Through the exchange of ideas, the participants will learn about how to engage students directly with the public, ‘real-world’ Internet, through online knowledge production and their membership of knowledge networks which exist through the Internet. They will have contributed and gained a better understanding of both the potential benefits of this approach, and also some of its challenges (such as management, copyright, assessment, equity and so on).as well as the broader challenges. They will emerge with specific technologies, practices and activities that they can apply to their own teaching.

Pre-requisites:
Participants should be people who have already some familiarity with using online learning techniques in their teaching beyond the level of simply placing materials online in a learning management system. Participants will be expected to share and discuss their current ideas with other workshop members.

To Register:
The workshop will be limited to 28 participants, so please let us
know if you intend to join us.

Contact: Ms. Rachel Hunter, Educational Technology Services, UNSW@ADFA
Email: r.hunter(a)adfa.edu.au
Telephone: 02 6268 8499

Exploring online learning via Web 2.0 and a knowledge networking approach
An Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC) Workshop with Associate Professor Matthew Allen, 2009 ALTC Teaching Fellow, Head, Department of Internet Studies, Curtin University of Technology (http://www.netcrit.net)
Venue: LT12,Lecture Theatre North (Building32) UNSW@ADFA, Northcott Drive Canberra
Map: http://www.unsw.adfa.edu.au/images/adfamap.pdf
Date/Time: 1400 – 1530 (afternoon tea at 1530) Friday 17th July, 2009

Seminar Description:
The 90-minute seminar / discussion is aimed at developers and designers who are active in developing innovative approaches to the use of the internet as a teaching environment. It will canvass broader issues arising from Matthew’s ALTC project.

Learning in Networks of Knowledge (LINK) (see below). The session will consist of a presentation by Matthew of a draft paper on the underpinning questions and issues, the current research program, and will then allow extended discussion and debate about possibilities and problems with web 2.0 – based online learning.

The Learning in Networks of Knowledge (LINK) Project will develop, trial and assess new methods of learning via the Internet.

It assists the re-invigoration of university-level online learning by updating techniques and underlying pedagogic approaches to take account of the changing nature of the Internet in society today. Founded in experience gained over several years with existing online learning approaches, LINK aims to help Australian universities adjust to the new possibilities for Internet education in the late 2000s. LINK involves a sophisticated trialling of new ideas about learning via the Internet, using the most recent forms of online knowledge activity. Its primary outcomes will be broadly applicable pedagogic methods, confirmed and corrected on the basis of the trial, and expressed as examples and guidance material for other academics across the university sector.

The presenter, Associate Professor Matthew Allen, is a nationally recognised university educator, having received an Australian Award for University Teaching in 2000 and more recently being awarded an Australian Learning and Teaching Council Teaching Fellowship. This workshop forms part of his fellowship project, Learning in Networks of Knowledge (http://altc-link.wikidot.com/).

Pre-requisites
Participants should be familiar with and involved in the design of nnovation in online or computer-based learning; the session
will particularly suit those wishing to engage with conceptual underpinning that might guide our fusion of Internet and pedagogy.

To Register
The workshop will be limited to 28 participants, so please let us know if you intend to join us.

Contact: Ms. Rachel Hunter, Educational Technology Services, UNSW@ADFA
Email: r.hunter(a)adfa.edu.au
Telephone: 02 6268 8499