ASCILITE NEWS
Only a few days to go until the ASCILITE 2021 conference commences
The ASCILITE 2021 Conference Organising Committee would like to take this opportunity to say how excited they are to welcome everyone, either virtually or physically, to ASCILITE2021. They have a great program lined up both virtually and physically.
The conference program has now been published and you’ll find all the great sessions on the conference website here.
The program kicks off with online pre-conference workshops on Sunday followed by a Welcome on Monday morning with our Keynote, Professor Sarah Pearson, an inspiring colleague who will provide an overview of some of the areas that she’s been involved in through emerging technology and innovations nationally, some international work that she has undertaken and some examples of education technology both locally and internationally. Her keynote will end with a Q&A. Sarah has also contributed a blog post in preparation for her talk and you’ll find a link to the blog in this Bulletin below.
The conference program will continue with some great sessions, including papers, panel sessions, Pecha Kuchas, Posters and sessions from our SIGs (Special Interest Groups), our journal AJET and the CMP (Community Mentoring Program). Our sponsors will also hold demonstrations, panel sessions and workshops. The program has been designed so that delegates can dip in and out of sessions that are of interest to them.
The Conference Proceedings will be available prior to commencement of the conference. The final editing of papers is still taking place but all papers have been assigned DOIs.
Conference registration will remain open for a few more days and you can still sign-up here.
ASCILITE 2021 Keynote on “Emerging Tech – It’s moving fast and we need to too!” by Prof Sarah Pearson
Professor Sarah Pearson (University of Queensland) is this year’s Keynote speaker at ASCILITE 2021. Prof Pearson has kindly contributed a post on the topic she will be covering in her keynote. Published on the ASCIITE TELall blog Prof Pearson, posits that:
“No matter how hard we try to control the world we inhabit, we will never win. Industrial, environmental & social opportunities and challenges, life itself, just seems to become more and more VUCA – Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous. The need for many eyes and minds to work through this is clear. The only way we can possibly keep up, maintain our immensely privileged position on this planet, adapt to the VUCA world and enjoy the benefits of scientific and technological progress is through collaboration. If we want to make sure no one gets left behind, we need to embrace S&T advances and work together.”
In her talk for ASCILITE 2021 Prof Pearson will go through some of the trends she is seeing in the work that she is engaged in from Venture Capital (VC) to companies and regional development, innovation ecosystems, inclusivity and poverty alleviation and where EdTech fits in these developments.
The Peer Assisted Learning Design Program (PALD) initiative seeks your interest
The recent Learning Design career survey as posted recently on the TELall Blog (see below) indicates that one key success factor in launching a successful career in the Learning Designer/Education Developer professions is gaining design experience. To assist those interested or working in this area, Prof Michael Sankey (Charles Darwin University) and Jack Sage (James Cook University) are enquiring as to whether or not there is an appetite among the ASCILITE membership to see a Peer Assisted Learning Design Program (PALD) with the aim of providing:
- New ASCILITE members and aspiring Learning Designers with an opportunity to develop new skills and experience in learning design.
- Participate in the ASCILITE Community Mentoring Program (CMP) to undertake an authentic learning design project as part of their program outcomes.
- ASCILITE members seeking to extend their experience portfolio beyond the tertiary education sector.
- ASCILITE members keen to give back to the community and ensure high learning and Instructional design standards in the Non-For-Profit sector.
PALD has been designed as an ASCILITE community support initiative, targeting the Non-For-Profit (charity) sector which relies on volunteers to provide help where it is most needed.
If any of the above sounds like you, we invite you to register your interest in the PALD Expression of Interest Form.
Please forward the link to anyone who may be interested.
We look forward to hearing from you and thank you for your time!
Professor Michael Sankey
Director Learning Futures and Lead Education Architect
Charles Darwin University
President, Australasian Council on Open, Distance and eLearning ACODE
TELall: Managing Career Transitions into post-secondary Learning Designer Jobs – A Teaser
In a new contribution to ASCILITE’s TELall blog by Jack Sage (James Cook University) and Michael Sankey (Charles Darwin University), our authors look closely at the data on Instructional Designer/ Learning/ Educational Designer careers and the results of a survey they published in regards the issue.
“Australian Government Labour Market Information projects a 12.9% increase in job openings for the broad category of Multimedia Designers between 2020-2025 (Labour Market Information Portal Website, 2020). Unfortunately, more granular data on Instructional Designers (ID), or Learning/Educational Designers (LD/ED) is not publicly available. The Seek Career Advice portal quotes the above “job growth 12.9%” under the banner Instructional Designer (Seek.com.au, 2021), which is somewhat misleading. However, it is not unreasonable to anticipate some growth in HE LD/ED jobs given the Minister Tudge’s ambitious plans of expanding Australian Higher Education to 10 million students outside Australia by 2030 (Tudge, 2021); ongoing re-conceptualisation of teaching and learning (Alexander et al. 2021); and progressing casualisation of the academic workforce. Seek Career Advice offers some information on careers in ID and lists a few AQF Level 4 and 5 qualifications as a pathway to become an ID, though is silent about the specialist LD/ED qualifications (e.g. Graduate Certificate in Learning Design or similar offered currently by UNE, QUT Online, UTS, Monash and VU) instead listing generic “Bachelor of Arts”.
“A casual review of some 100 Higher Education LD/ED LinkedIn profiles led us to the hypothesis that career paths do not follow a clear pattern. To understand this more we devised an online survey…”
Read more and while you’re there, why not post a comment and join the conversation!
TELEdvisors SIG webinar on Pathways to Learning Design (and more) – skill or luck?
Date and time: 25 November @ 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm AEDT | Singapore 9am | New Zealand 2pm | Other time zones
What does it take to join the ranks of the Learning Designer/Education Developer professions in Post-secondary Education? Is it hard to get in? Do we need to make it easier/harder for new arrivals? What is the future of these roles?
Is existing career information sufficient to identify Learning Design as a viable career pathway and effectively navigate a career transition to the Third Space? What can the TELedvisors network (and ASCILITE) do to better promote the profession in the broader society?
Join an interactive presentation summarising the findings of a recent ASCILITE survey conducted by Michael Sankey and Jack Sage and share your insights – particularly if you did not have a chance to contribute to the survey.
You can join this free session in the TELEdvisors meeting room.
ASCILITE 2021 Webinar series recordings available
Did you know that ASCILITE has presented and recorded 10 one-hour webinars this year on a wide range of topics. Check-out the topics covered to see if there’s something of interest that’s worth viewing.
OTHER NEWS
CRADLE Seminar Series: Sustainability in teaching and learning innovations
Join the forum hosted by CRADLE’s Prof. Margaret Bearman followed by an interactive discussion on sustainable innovation in practice.
In Australia, significant resourcing has been directed towards improving university teaching and learning. However, sustaining such innovative improvements can be challenging, particularly when success is difficult to describe or measure.
By considering what sustains and how, institutions can direct future efforts towards innovations that will continue providing value to students and staff after the initial project has completed. In June 2021, we undertook a systematic search of published peer-reviewed literature, using Scopus, yielding 2810 titles. Of these, 14 highly diverse papers were included in the synthesis of the evidence.
Within this literature, innovation and sustainability were conceptualised in a wide variety of ways and studies focussed on different levels of implementation, such as institution, team or artefact. Analysis suggests recurrent themes including: maintaining connection/support between leadership and smaller teams; the need for resourcing or rewards; and the value of visible successes.
Together, the literature underlines the complexity of sustaining innovation and the challenges of research in this area. This forum will take the format of a half hour presentation, followed by an in-depth participant discussion of how sustainable innovation can be conceptualised, researched and implemented in practice.
When: 1.00pm – 2.30pm (AEDT), Wednesday 8 December 2021
Where: Online
Registration: This is a free event and you can register here.
HETL Conferences & Talks: Share your ideas by completing a brief survey
The International Higher Education Teaching and Learning Association (HETL) seeks input regarding its upcoming series of online talks and conferences. They envision launching an ongoing series of online “HETL Talks” which would be brief webinars focused on timely topics of interest to their membership and to higher education faculty, staff, and administration more generally. They are also seeking input regarding their conferences, which are more extended opportunities for professional development and networking, usually over a three-day period, and typically available solely or partially in-person.
Please take a moment to complete this brief survey to share your ideas for both HETL Talks and Conferences by 6 December 2021.
