Announcing the fourth of our rapid fire presentations!

Why Online Hasn't Been Enough: Enabling Individuals to Transform Learning

Despite what the current media buzz may suggest, online education isn't new. But too often the practice of online teaching has been held back: by small pools of willing teachers, by closed or restricted educational resources, by exclusivity of access, by our ability to engage the learner, and even by the technology itself. These limitations are often in stark contrast to the informal experiences users have every day on the open web. If formal education is going to survive in the modern era of ubiquitous and free access to information, it must thrive on empowering individuals--teachers and students alike--to transform the learning experience.

Canvas approaches these challenges by empowering teachers to create the learning environment their students need, by eliminating the underlying anxieties about online education while still extending what we thought a learning platform could be. By adding humanness and fostering engagement, we're helping the teacher become a hero. By integrating the social web and reflecting real learning, we're helping the learner become an adventurer. Together, they will break learning out of a "place"--whether real or virtual--to become a more seamless experience, one that happens both within and beyond the classroom.

Because, in the end, it's what happens beyond the classroom that really counts.

Presented by:

Jared Stein serves as Director of Knowledge Resources for Instructure, creators of Canvas. Jared has worked in higher ed for over 15 years, focusing on providing access and improving learning outcomes through online and blended learning.  Mr. Stein also served on the planning committee of the annual Teaching with Technology Idea Exchange, the first “open conference” of its kind, which he co-founded in 2005.

Announcing the third of our five rapid fire presentations!

Architecting the Library of Babel: Mass Customization in Learning & Performance Support

How do we deliver on the promises of innovation while simultaneously meeting the practical realities of implementations and rollouts? Corporate learning hears the call for personalization but it must often answer it on a massive scale.  Increased information, input, and feedback can bring additional noise or dynamic context. Ambitious new solutions move beyond a simple blend of delivery modes to include a more relevant and learner-centric amalgam of instructional strategies. Let’s take a closer look at what’s currently changing—not in theory but in practice—as we survey some of the most interesting solutions being developed for workplace learning.

Presenter:

Michael Noble, PhD, became the Chief Learning Officer for Allen Communication Learning Services in 2005. Allen provides custom learning and performance improvement solutions for a Fortune 500 clientele. Michael has presented at several national and international conferences for organizations such as ISPI, ASTD, and the eLearning Guild. He also teaches at the University of Utah.

Announcing the second of our five rapid fire presentations!

What is OER and Why Should it Matter to Me?

Creating, developing and sharing Open Educational Resources (OER) has served as a game changer in the secondary education arena.  The creation of OER allows everyone the opportunity to use and modify high quality courses and educational resources, to best meet the needs of all students.  It is cost effective for schools, flexible for teachers, adaptable for all levels of learners, and ever evolving.  The Open High School of Utah has been creating and using OER as the basis of their courses for the past four years.  They have developed and released over 30 semesters of OER courses, with some in their second release.  They have fine-tuned the process of identifying, structuring, and creating a dynamic and engaging curriculum using OER. 

Presented by:
Amy Pace has just begun her fourteenth year of teaching.  She currently teaches for the Open High School of Utah where she is Science Department Chair, biology teacher, and course writer.  She was the 2009 recipient of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Math and Science Teaching.  This past year, she was named as one of the Best Five Online Teachers in America by onlineschools.com, worked with the Gates Foundation at the Conversations on Quality Symposium, and presented at the iNACOL Virtual Schools Symposium. 

Announcing the first of our five rapid fire presentations!

The Education Achievement Authority of Michigan's School Model - Maximizing Individual Growth through Education Technology