speaking with danah boyd

Yesterday was the TLT Symposium at Penn State and I was lucky enough to attend and be on the program committee this year. The symposium is always wonderful and this year the speakers were David Wiley and danah boyd – both fantastic.  It’s so energizing to hear people speak about things that you’re passionate about and watching people becoming excited, getting ideas, and learning from each other is so inspiring. I had two ‘favorite moments’ from the day. My favorite thing yesterday was listening to danah boyd talk about social networks and then getting to meet her afterward.  My second favorite moment was hearing an older professor stand up in a session about ‘friending’ on Facebook between instructors and students and talk about how important it is to him to have those personal connections with his students.

photo by colecamplese

TLT Symposium was a wonderful event, as always. Huge thanks to everyone that worked so hard to pull it all together.

TLT Symposium – reimagine

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!

tlt symposium

Just registered for the TLT Symposium to be held at the Penn Stater on March 29.  This year’s theme is “The Collaborative Campus and the Culture of Teaching and Learning”. Sort of sounds like an appropriate conference for me, and World Campus in general.

I found out about this conference about 10 minutes ago. Know how I found out? Social networking.  A professor that teaches IST at Penn State Abington sent an IM to my Second Life avatar, Micala Lumiere, to ask if I’d be presenting at the symposium. Not only am I not presenting, but I didn’t even know about it until he sent me a message. I know who he is, because he sent me an IM once in Second Life to ask if I knew who designed the space for Penn State New Media on Penn State Isle 2. I responded that I had designed and created it and we’ve been conversing ever since.

I’m thrilled that he let me know this was happening, but once again disappointed that at times there is such a disconnect at Penn State. I think there are so many advantages to being such a huge university and giving people so many options, but we really need to improve how we communicate with all of our campuses and with everyone – not just with people we know, or people we “think” might benefit from what we have to say.  Let’s open it up. Let’s let everyone share in the amazing things that are going on at Penn State.