ASCILITE NEWS

ASCILITE2017 Draft Conference Program Released

The conference organizers have now published the draft program for the conference and you can view the PDF version here. As a result, the organizers have also extended the Early Bird registration rate for the conference to 23 October.

A Critical Review of Frameworks for Digital Literacy: Beyond the Flashy, Flimsy and Faddish – Part One

The latest post on the ASCILITE TELall blog has been contributed by Professor Mark Brown from the National Institute for Digital Learning at Dublin City University. In this first of three posts, Mark delves into a critical review of frameworks for digital literacy. In Parts 2 and 3 (to be published in the coming weeks) Mark will go into further detail on this topic and provide a critical review of several specific frameworks.

You’ll find Part One here.

You can subscribe to the TELall blog or leave a comment if you wish to discuss Mark’s post in further detail.

Review of ASCILITE’s Inaugural Spring into Excellence Research School

The inaugural ASCILITE Spring into Excellence Research School was launched by Associate Professor Dominique Parrish on Tuesday 26 September at the University of Wollongong and continued through to Thursday 28 September 2017. Twenty six participants from 10 institutions participated in the school. Read more >><

Upcoming LD-SIG Webinar: Learning Design Research: Continuing the Discourse

The Learning Design SIG is conducting a webinar on 24 October 2017, titled Learning Design Research: Continuing the Discourse. Learning Design is an evolving field of research and practice associated with many definitional variations and unique concepts. Nevertheless, among the Australian Learning Design community, there seems to exist a general agreement that Learning Design (LD) is primarily about the generation and study of design ideas, the efficacy of their capturing, sharing and reusability.

What is missing is an agreement on a set of LD Methodologies, which can assist with some of the most challenging issues of LD research and practice. This webinar will explore the challenges of collaboration, distribution and reusability of learning designs. We argue that addressing these challenges may constitute a first step towards the future development of agreed LD methodologies.

You can find-out more about the webinar and register for the session here.

Next ASCILITE Live! Webinar: Building capacity for Open Educational Practices in Australian HE

Capacity building can be key to raise understanding, awareness and empower educators to make informed decisions about change and adoption of innovation learning technologies to enhance learning and teaching in higher education. This is also true for Open Educational Resources (OER) and Open Educational Practices (OEP). In fact, research conducted in Australia in 2011 showed that higher education stakeholders believed that capacity building was a way to eliminate barriers and increase OEP engagement.

You can find-out more about the webinar schedule for 26 October 2017 and register for the session here.

2017 ASCILITE Award Nominations – Closing Date Extended

The closing date for nominations for the ASCILITE 2017 Awards has been extended to Friday 16 October 2017 so if you just missed the 2 October deadline, you now have one more week to prepare your nominations! ASCILITE is accepting nominations in three award categories; the Innovation Award, Life Member Award and Fellow Award

You will find full details on each award and nomination forms here.

ASCILITE2017 Conference closing date for Early Bird extended

Early Bird registrations for the ASCILITE2017 Conference have now been extended to 16 October. The draft conference program is due to be released any day so do subscribe to the Conference Blog to receive the latest updates.

Call for Nominations to the Executive Committee

This is a reminder that ASCILITE members are invited to stand for election to the ASCILITE Executive Committee. Current ASCILITE financial members who value the services and professional community engagement offered through our not-for-profit Society, and who believe they have the time, commitment and dedication to work in a voluntary capacity to contribute toward a variety of ASCILITE activities, are invited to nominate for election to the Executive Committee.

This year, nominations are for the office of President and Vice President/Executive Officer (a combined role) and 3 non-office bearer positions. Members are welcome to nominate for any of these position by following the nomination process detailed here.

The current Executive Committee members are listed here.

ASCILITE SIG Survey

If you have been involved in one of ASCILITE’s five Special Interest Groups over the last year or so, we invite you to complete our first ASCILITE SIG survey which should take you about 8 minutes to complete. The survey is anonymous and designed to ensure that all ASCILITE SIGs are relevant to you and other SIG members. The survey will help ASCILITE and SIG leaders better understand your needs within the SIG.

You will find the survey here and we do hope that you can find a few minutes to complete it. If you’re a member of more than one SIG, you can repeat the survey by selecting a different SIG name in Q1.

The survey has been vetted by the leaders of each ASCILITE SIG who are all keen to know what you think.

We would very much appreciate if you could complete the survey by 25 October 2017..

Once we have tabulated the results, we will make them available to the SIGs and in the ASCILITE bulletin for ASCILITE members to view.

Not a SIG Member?

ASCILITE supports a diverse range of Special Interest Groups and you can join any one of them at no cost. There are currently five ASCILITE SIGs, with more on the way:

Transforming Assessment SIG – TA-SIG
Learning Analytics SIG – LA-SIG
Learning Design SIG – LD-SIG
Mobile Learning SIG – ML-SIG
TEL edvisors SIG – TELe-SIG

TELe-SIG Invitation to a Twalk!

The TELedvisors-SIG invites you to come take a TWALK that will venture into the real world this Thursday 12 October (12noon AEDT) with its first TWalk. A TWalk combines a Twitter chat with a stroll around five teaching and learning spaces of interest. Participants in a location create their own route and discuss various aspects of physical teaching spaces with peers across Australasia on Twitter using the #TWalk hashtag.

Detailed instructions and other information can be found at https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bwzy2Yg5r5udZy1fR3FXUkVETms

OTHER NEWS

Australia’s Longest Running Blended Learning Conference, 17 – 18 October 2017

There is no doubt blended learning is not a new concept, with many universities already using blended learning methods to drive student engagement, learning outcomes and the overall staff and student experience. So the question is, ‘what’s the next step?’

If this question is front of the mind for you, then the 6th Annual Blended Learning Summit is a must attend event for you. View the event guide for more information.

In its 6th year, the summit goes beyond the steps of just implementing blended and delves deeper into the next steps of collaboration, upscaling and capacity building, as well as providing lessons learned from those universities who are in the process of standardising and upscaling blended learning.

ASCILITE is a media partner with this event which is offering a 10% discount to ASCILITE members on the conference registration fee..

Featured Speakers include:

Jennifer Sparrow, Senior Director of Teaching and Learning with Technology – Penn State University [USA]
Danny Munnerley, Head Blended Learning and Innovation – James Cook University
Dr. Mark King, Director Educational Delivery Services – UNSW
Professor James Arvanitakis, Dean, Graduate Research School – Western Sydney University
Brian Bailey, Technology Innovation Manager – University of Sydney
Plus more!

There’s only 1 week left to register so to reserve your place at Australia’s leading blended learning conference, email registrations or book online. ASCILITE members can save 10% by using the VIP Code: ascilite17.

Job Vacancy: Learning Designer, Education and Social Work at University Auckland

We have an exciting opportunity for a passionate Learning Designer to join our team of creative, highly collaborative digital learning leaders. The role is a full-time, permanent position in the Digital Learning Team at the Faculty of Education and Social Work, University of Auckland, New Zealand.

The opportunity:

Join a team dedicated to enhancing learning and teaching through digital innovation
Engage with projects that develop blended and online learning experiences and integrate emerging technologies to transform both undergraduate and postgraduate learning and teaching in our faculty
Develop collaborative relationships and provide pedagogical consultation, as well as professional learning and development opportunities, for a diverse range of stakeholders

Applications close 20 October. Email Lawrence May at l.may@auckland.ac.nz for further information or visit the website here.