The TLT Symposium is coming up at Penn State and this year’s theme is ‘reimagine’. As we think about education and how things have changed in teaching and learning with technology, we start to reimagine the concepts of teacher/student and what exactly a ‘typical’ classroom is these days.

Leading up to the symposium, we recorded a podcast talking about our theme, the event, and the excitement that’s building.

Listen here!

I’m attending Educause 2008 in Orlando this week and I’m excited at the prospect of attending some really great sessions and meeting some new people. I present on Friday morning, but until then I hope to catch as many sessions as I can.

My first “track” session this morning is the “Top Teaching and Learning Challenges for 2009″ presented by Julie Little and Carie Page from ELI. I presented at ELI in Minneapolis in September and will be a panelist at ELI in January 2009 in Orlando as well. Here are notes/key points from this session:

Today this session is launching a new community project, talking about the big issues, and asking for input and involvement.

The conversation about the challenges began around the community (expertise, peer-to-peer collaboration). They plan to form discussions, videos, podcasts around this topic in the coming months.

In the next 2-3 years, what big challenges face teaching and learning with IT?
What big issues are dominating your campus conversations and debates?

One of the top challenges is “Engaged Learning” – students actively involved in their learning, recognizing the social and interactive nature.

Traditional learning/delivery retention is typically around 35-40%. Engaged learning increases retention to between 55-75%. Engaged learning has been around for a long time – it’s not new – just high-tech now. Students can now perform authentic tasks, explore, solve problems and engage in a variety of activities,  and can form virtual cooperative learning relationships.

21st century literacies: (among students and faculty)
Three Kinds: Information, Digital, and Visual.
Three Levels: Stimulated, Literate, Fluent
Three Learning Strategies: Stand-alone instruction, Component of general education courses, Woven within the instructor’s academic plan

Introducing New and Emerging Technologies to Faculty:
There is a large technology gap between students and faculty – (finally get faculty using email just as students begin to prefer texting). Students can help us lead in this area – students WANT technology used in their courses. By supporting a few faculty, we can reach hundreds of students.

Challenges:
http://www.educause.edu/eli/challenges

Saw this post this morning on one of my favorite blogs, The Bamboo Project Blog, by Michele Martin. I love her blog and find something valuable there on a daily basis. Truly.  Michele’s post refers to a post by Christine Martell that refers to a learning framework by Ray Jimenez on social media and learning.

In reading Michele’s post I was thinking about how this still relates to the discussion that we’ve been having in our local learning community recently about “open invitations” to participate and the desire to involve everyone.

As Michele points out, some of our learners might certainly be ready to participate, but perhaps not in the way we would want them to, or in the way we think they should.  I think this is really important.  We may feel that it’s easy and perfectly natural to comment on blogs, edit wikis, and take part in online conversations and even if we extend an invitation to others, it may not work.  We can open our arms as wide as we can, have snacks and refreshments waiting for them, and we may still not have anyone come to our party. Why? Not because they are refusing to participate.. they’re uncomfortable with the ways we’re asking them to participate.

Not only do we need to think about inviting people to be part of our community, discussions, and learning but we need to be aware of the different levels and know where our co-workers are.

I think most of us agree that we want our learners and co-workers to be creators and contributors, but they may not be ready for that. They may not feel comfortable starting a blog, creating virtual content or even editing your wiki. In fact, I feel completely comfortable as a content creator and even I’m intimidated by editing a wiki. No idea what it is, but I’m always a little hesitant to do it.

That being said, these are all things to think about as we think more about “Open Content” and invitations to participate.  Not everyone’s ready for the four-course meal. We might need to just offer some appetizers at first. At least that way, everyone’s at the party.

One of my good friends in Outreach (shout-out to Tara T.) forwarded an email to me yesterday about an autistic girl and how she communicates. This is a video and article about Amanda, her life, and how she communicates and experiences everything around her.

I am inspired, amazed and humbled by this video. Please take a moment to read and watch when you can.

http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/16-03/ff_autism