ASCILITE NEWS
ASCILITE 2021 Conference Website Goes Live
The 2021 ASCILITE conference website is now live at https://2021conference.ascilite.org. The Call for Submissions will be open in the coming weeks. In the meantime, basic submission information is available on the conference website here, along with the Call for Reviewers.
The conference is being planned as an in-person event at the University of New England in Armidale NSW from 29 November – 1 December 2021. Key dates for the conference include:
- Call for Papers opens: April 2021
- Call for Reviewers opens: April 2021
- Call for Papers closes: 2 July 2021
- Call for Reviewers closes: 2 July 2021
- Registrations open: July 2021
- Registration closes: November 2021
Transforming Assessment SIG Webinar: Honing self-assessment via serious games and team learning
Date and time: 5 May 2021 @ 5pm AEST, 7pm New Zealand and 3pm Singapore. For start times in other time zones go here.
This session explores two approaches to enhancing the self-assessment capabilities of students using gamified, team-based, formative assessment activities.
This panel session is jointly presented by Transforming Assessment and the Assessment in Higher Education Network (UK). The session chair will be Fabio Arico (University of East Anglia, UK) and the first presenter is Jayne Coleman (Glasgow Caledonian University, UK) who will speak on “An Evaluation of Serious Gaming as a Formative Assessment Tool”. Jayne will be followed by Paul McDermott (University of East Anglia, UK) who will discuss “Finding Your Confidence in the Numbers: Developing Self-Assessment Accuracy through an Adapted TBL Process”.
You’ll find further information and registration on the TA-SIG website here.
Previous session recordings
A video recording with session resources for “Lessons Learned from Systemically Implementing Competency Based Assessment” held on 7 April and presented by Sean Maw and Shaobo Huang (University of Saskatchewan, Canada) is available for viewing here.
TELedvisors SIG Webinar: Connecting 4
Date and time: Thursday 29 April @ 12pm AEST, 12am New Zealand and 8pm Singapore You will find start times in other time zones here.
Join the TELedvisors Network for chats around #FemEdTech, connected projects, post doc fellowships and find out what they have in common! Like the game of lining up the coloured dots we are connecting four educators in this webinar. The presenters are Frances Bell, Sarah Lambert, Johanna Funk and Wendy Taleo (Host).
You can join this session in the SIG’s Collaborate meeting room here.
Online debate with the ASCILITE Community Mentoring Group (CMP) participants
Date and time: 29 April 2021 3pm (NZ Time).
Members and non-members alike are invited to join the first ever exciting CMP debate between CMP alumni and CMP members 2021 on “When the internet knows all, is the humble testamur valuable?”
The ASCILITE CMP is a community that runs on an annual basis to match participants in a professional mentoring relationship built between learners (mentees) and experienced practitioners (mentors).
Join the dabate via this zoom Link (meeting ID: 3429594848)
Webinar recording: Learning Analytics SIG – Digging deeper into the ethical use of Learning Analytics
The ASCILITE LA SIG conducted a panel discussion/webinar on 22 April 2021 as part of its Digging Deeper into Ethical use of LA series. The session built on an ongoing discussion of a recent white paper on the ethical use of learning analytics in Australian higher education. Ensuring that learning analytics are used in an ethical way is a concept that learning analytics practitioners, teachers, designers, and researchers continue to grapple with as data becomes more prevalent in education. Building a shared understanding of how we can bring together research on this concept with policy and practice is key to being able to address this challenge. In response, the LA-SIG team put together a series of activities to explore the ethics of learning analytics in more detail. This workshop builds on an ongoing discussion of a recent white paper on the ethical use of learning analytics in Australian higher education.
Panelists for the session were Ben Hicks (Learning Analytics Lead for the Retention Team at Charles Sturt University), Ruth Marshall (Director of R&D and Data Integrity at Australian Education Technology company Practera) and Prof Simon Buckingham Shum (Director, Connected Intelligence Centre and Prof Learning Infomatics, University of Technology Sydney).
You can view the full abstract, bios and video recording on the ASCILITE website here.
Webinar recording: Contract cheating, e-cheating, academic integrity and ensuring digital equity
“Are my students learning and taking ownership for their assessment outcomes?” This is a common question being asked, especially in light of the shift to remote learning and the associated challenges. Academic integrity with its many facets, requires that student work is original and reflects their understanding and perspective of the learning material. At the core, it means acting with the values of honesty, trust, fairness, respect and responsibility across learning, teaching and research, to shape citizens of integrity.
This webinar, which was co-sponsored by Turnitin, featured experts in the field of academic integrity with a focus on contract cheating, e-cheating and assessment security in order to tackle this timely topic. It aims to inform education professionals on best practices to ensure digital equity of students’ assessment submission.
The presenters for this session were Chukwudi Ogoh (Turnitin), Professor Cath Ellis (University of New South Wales) and Dr. Jasmine Thomas (University of Southern Queensland).
You can view the recording on the ASCILITE website here.
The Latest TELall Blog posts
Critical pedagogy in emergency remote teaching: An open letter to Paulo Freire
In this delightful post by Dr Joanna Joseph Jeyaraj (University Putra Malaysia), Joanna recites her letter to Freire; “If you were still alive, you would know that extraordinary change and disruption has occurred over the past year due to the Covid-19 pandemic. As a result, I began contemplating how I could engage with ideas you have espoused through your conception of a critical pedagogy.”
Educational technology in a Mathematics Department – a tale of a non-change agent
This blog post by Dr Tanya Evans (University of Auckland, New Zealand) discusses how she lived in the world of mathematics; worked in the department teaching mathematics; talking mathematics and essentially “used to be one of them.” And then she turned to the dark side and decided to devote all her mental capacity to research in higher education. As she explains “They are still talking to me, just … ”
ASCILITE Strategic Plan (2021 – 2024)
The ASCILITE Executive recently revisited the society’s Strategic Plan to ensure the goals and directions of the society remain current and relevant. The Strategic Plan guides the development of future plans and activities for the society based on data from member surveys and other activities.
ASCILITE’s strategic goals for 2021 – 2024 are underpinned by, and committed to, fostering a strong and engaged community that ensures the sustainability of ASCILITE. We seek to progress pedagogical innovation, evidence-based practice, and research in the sustainable use of digital technologies through strategic and international partnerships and on-going communication with our membership and wider community globally. We also acknowledge that innovation encourages and advances creative ideas in pedagogical practice; evidence-based practice provides validation that the innovation works as it was designed; and research affords rigorous evidence of the effectiveness of the innovation and evidence-based practice.
As a community, we seek to exercise leadership and advocacy in partnership with government, industry, professional bodies, the education sector and other partners both in Australasia and internationally to deliver digital excellence in tertiary learning and teaching to drive ASCILITE’s strategic goals and values.
You can view the Strategic Plan for 2021 to 2024 on the ASCILITE website here (5 page PDF).
Women in Academic Leadership Initiative update
The Women in Academic Leadership Initiative aims to provide mentoring opportunities for academics at levels C and D (or equivalent), with mentors from Levels D and E. The initiative brings together its members via a community group mentoring approach to support each other to progress in academia.
The initiative kicked off in earnest this month with members from across 9 mentoring groups for a lively online welcome session. There are 28 members in our inaugural cohort from across NSW (7 Universities), QLD (4 Universities), WA (2 Universities), VIC (3 Universities) and New Zealand (2 Universities)
A range of aims and goals have been highlighted by the membership including:
- Expanding networks
- Promotions
- Research collaborations
- Sharing and overcoming similar work-related issues
- Navigating different career pathways
Mentoring groups will be gathering online once a quarter to present on their plans at this years’ ASCILITE conference in November.
Whilst nominations for participation are now closed, further information is available on the ASCILITE website here.
In a related activity, Prof Jaya Dantas (Dean International, Faculty of Health Sciences, Curtin School of Population), is hosting a zoom discussion on the Future of Graduate Women, 29 April 2021. Details are available here.
ASCILITE signs Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with FLANZ
ASCILITE enters into MoUs in order to foster working relationships with like minded organisations. FLANZ (Flexible Learning Association of New Zealand) is the latest organisation to sign an MoU with ASCILITE in order to engage in activities and initiatives of mutual benefit and to support the development of learning communities around technologies, research and practice.
ASCILITE currently has MOUs with EDEN in Europe (2016), ALT in the UK (2017) along with SoLAR (2020), D2L in Australia (2020) and now FLANZ (2021).
You can view ASCILITE’s MoUs on the ASCILITE website here:
OTHER NEWS
Blackboard Adoption in Blended Learning Practice: What have we learned?
Date and time: 28 April @ 10am SGT, 12pm AEST
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the education landscape for students in terms of their learning experience. Conventional face-to-face class has to turned into synchronous online mode with minimal digital readiness. Features in Blackboard help learners to actively engage and adapt in online classes while social interaction expedites the blended learning integration in convergence to remote learning.
Join Dr. Norazlina Mohd Yasin as she discusses the approach they’re taking at UTMSPACE and shares the research she has collected so far on their learnings with this adoption. Dr. Norazlina Mohd Yasin, PhD is a General Manager of UTMSPACE Digital Learning Department. She is also a Senior Lecturer from School of Professional and Continuing Education (SPACE).
You can register for this session here.
