ASCILITE NEWS
ASCILITE 2021 Early Bird Conference registration ends soon
Early Bird specials for the ASCILITE Conference to be held on 29 November – 1 December 2021 at the University of New England in Armidale are scheduled to end on 15 October.
In the event of lockdowns, UNE will endeavor to retain a hybrid conference with a mixture of face-to-face and virtual. However, if attendees are unable to attend in person, their registration will be converted to virtual attendance and a refund of the difference will be provided.
For further information and to register, visit the conference website. If you have any questions about registration fees and bookings, please email the conference organisers at ascilite2021@une.edu.au
Call for Nominations in the 2021 ASCILITE Awards closes soon
ASCILITE members have until 18 October to apply or nominate for the ASCILITE awards and to consider nominations that they believe meet the criteria set for each award. The four award categories available to members in 2021 are the Innovation Award, Emerging Scholar Award, Community Fellow Award and the Life Member Award.
For further information on each award, refer to the specific award criteria and nomination form on the ASCILITE website.
Business Education SIG webinar: Leveraging technology to teach large cohorts: Comparing high and low resource investment
Date and time: 19 October @ 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm AEDT Free
Elaine Huber leads the University of Sydney Business School Co-Design Unit (BCD). Her 30-member team includes educational developers, digital learning designers and technologists, media producers, student interns and educational evaluators. BCD collaborates with large cohort unit coordinators to redesign the delivery of their units. Elaine will discuss their journey which is supported by large strategic project funding (Connected Learning at Scale) and provide examples of innovations based on the following three guiding principles:
- Connecting with discipline knowledge
- Connecting with Peers through active and collaborative activities
- Connecting with society through authentic assessment
While Brent Gregory was responsible for introductory Accounting Units at the University of New England, he structured those units to facilitate scalable personalisation. Brent had no budget and so took a more basic approach targeted more at the low hanging fruit.
This presentation will display a continuum from state of the art to low cost and provides a framework and examples for you to consider your approach to a more effective delivery of large cohort units.
You can join this session in the BE-SIG’s Blackboard Collaborate room here.
Learning Analytics SIG Workshop: Unpacking the ethical implications of everyday uses of learning analytics
Date and time: 28 October 2021 @ 3pm – 4pm AEDT.
As part of the ASCILITE Learning Analytics SIG series on Digging deeper into ethical use of learning analytics we invite you to an online workshop to continue the conversation around ethical issues relating to learning analytics use in higher education. This workshop will give participants a chance to unpack some of the ethical implications that may be present when using learning analytics as part of everyday practice.
This workshop builds on the outcomes of previous events in the Digging Deeper series to see if we can reach a consensus on what ethical issues exist and how these can be resolved. You can view the recordings of the previous panel and workshop session in the series online.
We would like to include a range of perspectives in this discussion, so encourage participants from many different roles to attend (e.g. learning designers, teaching staff, managers, analytics specialists, etc.).
The outcomes from this workshop will feed into the LA SIG workshop at the ASCILITE conference at the end of the year – rounding off the Digging Deeper series.
You’ can join this session in the SIG’s Blackboard Collaborate room.
Update on TELAS Information Sessions & Reviewer Certification workshops
Additional TELAS (Technology Enhanced Learning Accreditation Standards) information sessions and Reviewer Certification workshops are now being scheduled.
Two Information Sessions have now been conducted, the first with 31 participants on 2 Sept and the second on 29 Sept with 38 participants. A third session has now been scheduled for 18 November from 2pm – 4pm AEST and registration for this session is open via the link below.
In addition to the information sessions, two TELAS Reviewer Certification workshops have been scheduled, the first on 28 and 29 October, which has now closed for EOIs, and the second on 20 – 21 January 2022 which is now open for EOIs. The workshops take place online over two half-days and a registration fee has been set at $150 for members and $300 for non-members (which includes a one-year membership).
You can find out more about the Information Sessions and the reviewer workshops on the TELAS website here.
Latest TELall Blog Post on Multisensory Learning
In our latest blog post, Mark Schier (Adjunct Associate Professor, School of Education, University of New England) discusses ways to create a rich sensory environment that will increase our students’ potential for learning. Knowledge retention can be enhanced with simultaneous sensory stimuli, provided these are balanced and appropriate to face to face, blended or fully online environments.
OTHER NEWS
EDEN & NAP Webinar on Asynchronous Approaches to Teaching & Learning
Date and time: Wednesday, 13 October 2021 @ 17:00 CEST.
EDEN (European Distance & eLearning Network) and NAP (Network of Academics and Professionals) are hosting a webinar on Asynchronous approaches to teaching and learning. The session will consist of a presentations followed by a discussion.
Asynchronous approaches to teaching and learning have been part of the DNA of distance and online education for over forty years. However, during the Covid-19 pandemic pivot online, synchronous video conferencing quickly became the norm and asynchronous approaches were largely ignored. However, the literature indicates that active communication between students and instructors using asynchronous discussion forums promotes interaction and social presence in online courses (Farrell & Brunton, 2020; Buck, 2016; Gauvreau, Hurst, Cleveland-Innes, & Hawranik, 2016).
The session will begin with Dr. Sarah Lohnes Watulak and Dr. Jeni Henrickson sharing their experiences of creating The Asynchronous Cookbook, a collaborative and open textbook. Then, Rima Al Tawil will present her research on non-verbal communication in asynchronous discussion forums. Finally, Dr Caitriona Ni She, will share research and practice on asynchronous engagement drawn from the #Openteach project.
Further details and registration is available here. Joining instructions will be sent in a separate email before the webinar.
CfP for the Journal of Research on Technology in Education
The Journal of Research on Technology in Education has issued a CfP for a new special issue and you’ll find full details on the journal website here.
Thank you and kind regards,
Professor Dirk Ifenthaler
Chair of Learning, Design and Technology
University of Mannheim
UNESCO Deputy Chair on Data Science in Higher Education Learning and Teaching
Curtin University
ALT News Digests 622 & 623
ASCILITE provide links to the Association for Learning Technology (UK) News Digest for those members interested in news from ASCILITE’s equivalent in the UK. ALT’s News Digest is published weekly online. News Digest 622 was issued on 27 September 2021 and News Digest 623 was issued on 4 October 2021 ALT’s journal – Research in Learning Technology is open access.
