Hatfield conference is over.

Submitted by Piotr Goetzen on 20 June, 2007 - 16:34.

Dear Friends,

 

Hatfield conference is over.  It was really good and great. Many , let me say so, fanatic  t blended teachers were gathered. Of course all the people were great specialists.

The organisers wrote in the e-mail: "All of the conference sessions were webcast via Elluminate and you can now access these recordings to view any presentations. Open the programme attached and click on the hyperlinks to enter the recording for that session. We hope that you find this useful. Presentation slides will soon be available to download from the BLU website www.herts.ac.uk/blu " which is a great news. It was not possible to attend all the sessions, although they were so interested.

Keynote lecture given by Professor Gráinne Conole form  The Open University "
Tailoring support for the net generation: an insight into students' real use and experience of technologies". The very true about blended learning. Also the introduction speech by Professor Peter Bullen - Blended Learning Unit, University of Hertfordshire gives some perspective view of the situation of blended learning. To summarize:
No doubts - we MUST teach using broad range of tools  (mainly WEB2 tools including, podcasting, video- and voicestreaming,  Second Life !!!)

The problem is dissemination of the methodology.
At the Hatfield the introduction of blended methodology is very  advanced. This was the most important part of Professor Eeva Leinonen - Deputy Vice Chancellor, University of Hertfordshire presentation. We should look at the University as the example how we should introduce the blended teaching in our institutions.
During the conference sessions many examples of the tools and methods can be used (case studies)

I would recommend You to have a look at  this presentation first: https://sas.elluminate.com/mr.jnlp?suid=M.B2AA9B7C3874F2AE588C107E0954B9

For sure we should be back to the conference next year (they are going to make it a two-days event). We have also great news to present.

Re: Hatfield conference is over

Submitted by Arnold Mühren (not verified) on 21 June, 2007 - 11:12.

Thanks, Piotr, for the enthousiastic report.

Web2.0 tools, podcasting  (audio), videocasting, wikis and blogs are potentially very powerful tools for teaching (and learning) with large cohorts. There is little doubt about that in my mind. Examples of various uses are not difficult to find on the Web.

In this project (Blend-XL) we need to focus on the usefulness of these tools in enhancing the learning and teaching experience with large groups. Key questions include:

Which specific tools (or tool types) can contribute to making the learning process more interesting and motivating for students (and teachers)? What aspects of the process? How?

Which specific tools can assist towards solving logistical problems that teachers are faced with? Which logistical problems? How?

Which specific tools can help implement kinds of assessment that are (more) appropriate to the new ways of learning and teaching that are emerging?

Answers to questions like these would indeed be "great news" coming from the Blend-XL front at next year's Hatfield conference or any other conference.

Arnold   

Hey Arnold !

Submitted by Piotr Goetzen on 21 June, 2007 - 13:38.

Hey Arnold !

I am affraid all the tools, even unknown-yet or soon-to-come ones might be very usefull for our XL gropus too. They teach a group of 870 students of  Microeconomics changing the regular lecture/seminars into virtual lecture/participatoryworkshop and seminars(slide 16 http://perseus.herts.ac.uk/uhinfo/library/k96554_3.pdf) . The main tools: Blogs, Vikis, GSM (telephones- everybody has them ! They are more and more WEB oriented),   contetnt-delivery WEB systems (3 milions logins 2004 year - 6 million logins in 2007 in Hatfield - they have got their own  STUDYNET system) , kind of elluminates system- virtual calssrom systems, (http://www.elluminate.com/index.jsp)  and many more :-)

I was also pleased to see that the PhPBB forum is very widely used among the universities.

Your questions will have to be answerd for the next conference.

 

Cheers