Podcasting and Google Apps at Educause SW Regional 08

This week I attended the Educause Southwest Regional Conference in Houston, TX. At the start of the conference, I presented with Dr. McGee on Blended Learning: Implementing the Instructional Model of Tomorrow.

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Our presentation covered all the essential components of implementing Blended Learning on an institutional level: faculty development and support, student support, costs, blended learning models, marketing, and course redesign processes. 25 faculty members, CIOs, IT professionals, and faculty development professionals attended our session. This is a much needed area of support as our attendees spanned the spectrum in their involvement and awareness of Blended Learning.

Also attended a podcasting session presented by the University of Southern Mississippi: http://podcastpilot.blogspot.com/. They have a nice site supporting podcasting with video tutorials. This session was packed.

Yesterday, I attended a session on Google Apps. At the end of the session attendees started asking questions (and also sharing their interpretations) about copyright and web 2.0 technologies. I was struck by how much poor information is out there. Perhaps there is a need for another session: Copyright 2.0: How to navigate web 2.0 without violating copyright...

What's your thing??

As I've been working to develop my blog, it has occured to me that it might be useful to begin a collection of materials and resources specific to a topic or area of interest. For me, at this time, that area is blended learning. Toward that end, I've started a wiki on blended learning resources. Over time, I'm sure this will grow, evolve, and attract readers :)

Sloaning to the Blended World

I just returned from the Sloan-C Blended Learning Workshop in Chicago. This was my first Sloan/Blended Learning-dedicated event. It turns out the number of blended learning pioneers is smaller than I thought, much smaller, with only about 150 participants. Who are the leaders? Well, the UCF gang was there: Joel Hartman and Charles Dziuban (the data wizard). Also notable is the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee: Bob Kaleta. Between these two organization, you have everything you ever wanted to know about blended learning and then some.

The surprise here was how many blended learning "newbies" are actually out there. Sloan has a vast collection of blended learning resources, including data, best practices, models, contacts, etc. The workshop had two tracks: one for foundational knowledge and another for those who are interested in expanding their current initiatives.

The takeaways..... 1) figure out how you're going to collect data on everything you do--this will help tremendously as your program matures and you need to justify its existence (trust me on this one); 2) don't reinvent the wheel--even though this area is relatively new, a few leaders and leading organizations can really help get you started and avoid mistakes; 3) this is a hugely exciting field that brings together many exciting educational movements: instructional technology, course redesign, and hybrid education.

Well, it's exciting for some of us anyway :)