Jacquie McDonald

The University of Southern Queensland
Toowoomba, Queensland Australia

Email: mcdonalj@usq.edu.au

The ASCILITE2002 Conference (Australasian Society for Computers in Learningin Tertiary Education) was held at the UNITEC Institute of Technology AucklandNew Zealand http://www.unitec.ac.nz/ascilite/index.html

This was the first time the conference was held outside Australia and it wasa great success, with registrations having to be closed due to the largenumbers. The papers are available at on the conference web site, with the bestpaper, NextEd and ASCILITE annual award recipients soon to be posted. Papers areavailable at http://www.unitec.ac.nz/ascilite/proceedings/programme.html#fp4

The 2002 conference had a nautical theme, reflecting both Auckland's maritimeheritage and the Americas Cup, which is being held at the same time. The themesof the conference highlighted the growing importance of multimedia and onlinelearning in the curriculum and the rapid pace of change in the information andcommunications technology sectors. Conference themes are available at http://www.unitec.ac.nz/ascilite/theme.html.

Keynote speakers were Diana Laurillard (Open University UK), Tom Reeves(Virginia University, USA), and Peter Looms (Denmark Interactive Multimedia) whoreflected on the changing role of technology in society and how educators canuse these media resources to facilitate learning http://www.unitec.ac.nz/ascilite/speakers.html#diana_lauriland

Pre-conference workshops were offered. Details available at http://www.unitec.ac.nz/ascilite/proceedings/workshops.html#full.The author was a presenter at the session on "Encouraging Research intoOnline Learning and Assessment" http://docushare.unitec.ac.nz/dscgi/ds.py/Get/File-187/158.pdfinitiated by the Scottish Centre for Research into On-Line learning andAssessment (SCROLLA), where issues raised were actively debated by participants,and later posted to a post conference forum for ongoing discussion.

A paper reflecting on 20 years of ASCILITE history provided interestinginsights into the various themes relating to the development of computers andlearning over the lifetime of ASCILITE conferences http://docushare.unitec.ac.nz/dscgi/ds.py/Get/File-148/090.pdf.Discussion following this paper focused on the past and future of ASCILITE andthe possible format for conference presentations. Issues included the continueduse of speaker led presentations versus more interactive sessions or workshopformats - given that the papers are already posted on the web before theconference session.

The academic and social networking and the conference dinner are always ahighlight of the conference. This year the dinner was at the Royal New ZealandYacht club, with members posing for their photo beside the America’s Cup.Other functions included the welcome Hangi, the WebMCQ cocktail party, withharbour cruise provided as an alternative function to the Conference Dinner.