Last March, the JISC ran a highly successful online conference, Innovating e-Learning. This was organised by Direct Learn, on behalf of the JISC. It was a five day conference, and had over 400 participants, with over 2000 posts during the event. Presentations included two videos, 14 PowerPoint presentations (some with audio and/or video), 23 Word/PDF papers, four web sites developed for the conference, etc. Presenters included Diana Laurillard, John Stone, and Stephen Heppell. After the conference, Diana commented that it was a "fascinating experience - well worth it from my point of view, as I got lots of good challenges, and much more depth of discussion than would normally be managed at a keynote. Lots to learn, but clearly the beginnings of a great new way of doing conferences".
Following on from that conference, the JISC is running Innovating e-Learning 2007, again organised with Direct Learn. This will take place from the 11th - 14th June, again online, with the two themes of Institutional Transformation, and Supporting Lifelong Learning. Like last year, people are invited to respond to an open call for papers and presentations, and more information on that (and the conference generally) can be found on the web site, at http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/elearning_pedagogy/elp_conference07.aspx
Online conferences are an excellent way of sharing and disseminating information. Whilst not always free, they are invariably much cheaper than the physical equivalents, and, more importantly, the quality of the discussions is often better. The asynchronous environment allows for much more careful thought to be put into contributions, and makes it easier for many people to contribute, unlike live sessions where active participation tends to be more limited. Also, the quality of discussion can often be higher than you might find in a physical conference.
The discussions and the presentations will be available to delegates for at least one month after the conference ends on the 14th, to give people time to catch up with everything that happened during the conference - there is always a lot going on, and it can be difficult to keep up with everything over the four days of this event, so the persistence of information that you get in an online conference is really important for delegates.
Have a look at the conference web site, and please do respond to the open call.
Geoff Minshull,
Comments