I’ve really enjoyed the last couple of months and the discussions going on around Educational Technology in all it’s forms and facets. The debates around the LMS, MOOCs, mobile, BYOD, social media, badges and the like have really shown that if anything the education – right through K-12 to higher ed – is in a state of flux. Through the current discussions what is becoming clear to me is that education is demonstrating a willingness to participate in the change. In the face of disruption the education sector is actually engaging change unlike the music, publishing and media sectors before it.
It’s coming up to November and its conference season for me. This year is going to be interesting as I’m actually presenting at all the conferences. For the first time I am an active participant in change, innovation and development. It is extremely satisfying personally and professionally. By the end of the year I will have project managed a highly innovative program in mobile learning, been published three times, spoken at three conferences and through this blog and twitter had some amazing interactions with interesting and knowledgable people across the world. ( A shout out to @djplaner, @dajbelshaw, @marksmithers, @sthcrft)
Over the last couple of years my life has been heavy on the input – reading, absorbing and trying to gain an understanding. The output over the last year has been probably the defining difference professionally as I have actually been doing things rather than being passive, thinking, planning and it has filled me with a real sense of purpose that has pushed me through one of the busiest, demanding and rewarding times of my life. There is great reward coming from my professional life which is only surpassed by the satisfaction of being a dad.
It’s now output time on a grand scale and joining the dots and the threads. The conference presentations are not on airy-fairy topics – they are reflections on what has been done and what has been learnt. Over the next few weeks I will be feverishly trying to put ideas down into text and then into slides. I want to share some of those here on this blog and I welcome your feedback – so critique, comment, discuss, tweet and interrogate what you see and read!
Oh and those conferences:
CSUED (Internal Conference)
- Speaking – “How to use mobile technology for engaging and successful learning and teaching”
- Speaking – “mLearn: Lessons through exploration”
- Digital Theatre Presentation – “Understanding Mobile”
- Speaking – “Standing on the shoulders of giants: Improving Existing Systems With HTML5″
- Speaking & Co-Authored Full Paper – “Knowing, Doing, Being: Conducting and Reporting on Educational Technology Research for Institutional Impact”
- Speaking & Concise Paper – “Mobility makes us Agile and Lean: A New Paradigm for Institutional Projects”
I’ll post links to presentations/videos/papers once they’re up online.
Heart | Soul | Machine 