Faculty Summer Institute in Illinois

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Teaching in Illinois?

The Faculty Summer Institute (FSI) Program Committee would like to invite you to submit a proposal for this year’s conference, to be held May 13-15, 2013 at the Illinois Conference Center and I Hotel in Champaign, Illinois.

This year’s theme is, Learning Matters and the tracks are:

  • Engaging Learners
  • Effective Practices
  • Emerging Trends

To submit a proposal, please visit  http://go.illinois.edu/fsiproposal

If you are new to this submission system, you will be asked to create an account. If you are returning to the system, you will be able to log into your existing account. Note: This is not based on UIUC accounts at all, everyone will need to create an account, even if you have a NetID.

You may return to this form at any point before March 22, 2013 to modify the information you have entered or to finish an incomplete proposal. All required information must be entered by March 22, 2032 in order for your proposal to be considered complete.

Proposal Submission Deadline: Friday, March 22, 2013

2013 ICDE World Conference

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The 25th ICDE World Conference will be hosted by Tianjin Open University, China, on 16-18 October 2013. The abstract submission deadline was extended to April 30, 2013.

 The World Conference attracts delegates from around the globe representing the research community, teaching staff, management of educational institutions, the public sector, and both training companies and suppliers from the private sector.The ICDE World Conference on Open and Distance Education is widely recognized as the leading world event in open and distance education and offers a forum for the presentation of cutting edge developments, network building, and professional development.

Over the past 75 years since the establishment of International Council for Open and Distance Education (ICDE), international open and distance education has been making tremendous achievements with the concept of life-long learning, economic globalization, and advancement of educational technology. However, open and distance education is now facing with new opportunities and great challenges.

Open University creating new free course offerings

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Open University, in the UK, will begin offering free online courses with a new program called Futurelearn in early 2013.

Futurelearn logo

Eleven UK universities including Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, East Anglia, Exeter, King’s College London, Lancaster, Leeds, Southampton, St Andrews and Warwick have signed up to add courses and content to Futurelearn as well.

This program will create direct competition with the free Coursera and edX teaching and learning platforms from U.S.

 

 

Sloan C 2013 Blended Learning Conference

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The Sloan Consortium has opened a call for proposals for their 10th annual Sloan-C Blended Learning Conference and Workshop to be held in Milwaukee, July 8 – 9, 2013 .

You can submit a proposal to present at the 10th Annual Sloan Consortium Blended Learning Conference and Workshop on this his year’s conference theme, “Trend to Blend: Lessons from the Field.”

The conference theme on blended learning focuses on exploring research and effective practices across educational institutions.

 

UNED-ICDE 2013 International Conference call for papers

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A call for papers has been announced for the UNED-ICDE 2013 International Conference to be held 7-9 March 2013 in Madrid, Spain. The submission deadline for abstracts is  December 20th.

The overarching theme of the conference is Mobilizing Distance Education for Social Justice and Innovation, and papers submissions which reflect the following sub-themes are invited:

  1. Social system, welfare state and education policies
  2. Social justice and distance education
  3. Changes in Higher Education and successful experiences
  4. Public policies for the promotion of education and social justice
  5. The role of Higher Education institutions and their teachers in an educational model for social justice and innovation

 

edX expanding

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According to the Washington Post, Georgetown University will be joining the edX online learning system and begin offering free online courses alongside Harvard & MIT and a few other schools.

edX is a not-for-profit partnership between Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology created to design and offer interactive, web-based courses. Launched in May, 2012, it later expanded to include the University of California, Berkeley, the entire University of Texas system and Wellesley College.

Along with offering online courses, the institutions will use edX to research how students learn online and how technologies implemented in the courses  change the learning environment.

edX online contexts are large scale MOOCs (Massively Open Online Courses) that are created to serve course populations in the thousands instead of the more tradition 20 or 30 student-per-course groups of traditional classrooms and early online learning environments.

 

Small course group build consortium in 2U

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Another group of colleges have joined forces to offer online courses. Students enrolled at any of the 10 colleges campuses can take online courses from the shared system for credit at their primary or ‘home’ school.

Every member of the group has agreed to offer four-month-long online courses using software from 2U. 2U was founded in 2008 as 2tor by John Katzman and a group of developers.

Their approach is almost the opposite of a MOOC. These online courses, while offered to a wide geographic area, will be seminar-like online courses. The colleges are using 2U’s software to provide a platform for online courses capped at 20 students each.

Students already attending the institutions can earn credit from any college in the group, while students who are not enrolled at those colleges can apply to take the courses.

Universities in the consortium include:

  • Brandeis University
  • Duke University
  • Emory University
  • Northwestern University
  • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  • University of Notre Dame
  • University of Rochester
  • Vanderbilt University
  • Wake Forest University
  • Washington University in St. Louis

More here.

Conference: Symposium for Emerging Technologies for Online Learning

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The 6th Annual International Symposium for Emerging Technologies for Online Learning will be held April 9-11, 2013 at the Planet Hollywood Resort in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The conference centers on emerging and innovative uses of technology designed to improve teaching and learning online. Tracks for this year’s conference include Learning Spaces and Communities, Open and Accessible Learning, Evidence-based Learning, Faculty and Student Development, and Innovative Media and Tools. 

The conference is taking the unusual step this year of offering a free webinar on creating and writing the proposal for people interested in presenting at the conference.

The webinar is planned for November 29, 2012 - 3 pm to 4 pm. Click here to register for: 5 Tips on How to Submit a Successful Conference Proposal

Educators submit, and conference committees evaluate, hundreds of proposals in order to create a robust program for conference attendees. The number of proposals accepted for a conference depends on program size, topics covered and quality of abstracts submitted. This free webinar will include experts on the Sloan Consortium Conference Team and describe what they are looking for in proposal submissions.


World Conference on Open and Distance Education 2013

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25th ICDE World Conference in China

The 25th ICDE World Conference will be hosted by Tianjin Open University, China, on 16-18 October 2013. Tianjin is a coastal city approximately 120 km from Beijing.

The World Conference attracts delegates from around the globe representing the research community, teaching staff, management of educational institutions, the public sector, and both training companies and suppliers from the private sector.The ICDE World Conference on Open and Distance Education is widely recognized as the leading world event in open and distance education and offers a forum for the presentation of cutting edge developments, network building, and professional development.

Main theme:
New Strategies for Global Open, Flexible and Distance Learning

    Subthemes:
1. The Culture of ODL
2. Quality in ODL
3. Educational Technology in ODL
4. OER in ODL
5. Learning Support in ODL
6. The Regulatory Environment and Strategies for Innovative Open and Distance Learning
7. Assisted Learning

ACE looks at usefulness of MOOCs

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The American Council on Education will review a number of online courses offered by major US universities as part of a pilot project, funded by the Gates Foundation to look at the quality and use of massive open online courses as part of the ACE’s College Credit Recommendation Service.

According to a statement on the ACE website the project is looking at Coursera MOOCs that “can help raise degree completion, deepen college curricula and increase learning productivity.”

ACE is not an accrediting agency in any traditional sense. The group is a lobby group for higher education and offers professional development and information services for college and university leaders at over 100 institutions.