Like many in the UK learning technology arena, we’re off to Manchester on Monday evening ready for the ALT-C 2005 conference on Tuesday. ALT-C 2005 has the overarching theme Exploring the frontiers of e-learning – borders, outposts and migration. The University of Bath has a number of interesting contributions but the Higher Education Academy (to which I’m currently seconded) also has some very significant inputs. First let’s consider the University of Bath.
Bath’s small, but highly dynamic, School for Health has been working with the e-learning team for some time now, but this year’s ALT-C gives the team an opportunity to share their experiences with the wider community. There’s a couple of sessions, one of which is a symposium in collaboration with the University of Oxford’s TALL unit. The symposium Migration and Transformation: two journeys to open source (SYP 547) is on Tuesday 6 September at 1600 in the Renold Buidling, Room E7. So go along and listen to Tim Bilham, Geraldine Jones, Marion Manton, and Lisa Williams describe how two separate institutions benefitted from taking a pedagogically-driven approach to their use of the open source Moodle environment.
Not content with the 90 minute symposium, Tim Bilham and Geraldine Jones have another slice of the conference cake in their presentation Virtual Clinics: Online Learning Spaces for PBL (SP 599) on Wednesday 7 September at 0900 again in the Renold Buidling, Room E7.
Now on to my current professional base. I’m seconded into the Higher Education Academy for a year where I’ve donned the Head of e-Learning mantle whilst my colleague Lawrence Hamburg recuperates from major surgery. Lawrence is doing very well and he currently seems determined to break the world record for fastest out of hospital and through convalescence. We’ve had to cut off his phone, email and all other information and communication technologies just to keep him resting:)
Anway, albeit my being a poor substitute for the real thing, my colleague Paul Bailey, Director of Programmes for JISC and I will be offering the session The HEFCE e-Learning Strategy: Towards Implementation in which we will brief the community on forthcoming major initiatives designed to start the processes necessary to implement the Funding Council’s strategy. Delegates from Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland should also find something of interest, so turn up at the Academy sponsored session on Wednesday 7 September at 1430 in the Renold Building, room F2.
My Academy colleagues Liz Pearce, Eddie Gulc, Michael Grove, Brett Lucas, and Lisa Whistlecroft get their input in first however. On Tuesday they lead a symposium entitled Different Subjects / Subject Differences. The Academy’s Subject Centres make an excellent contribution to supporting the rich diversity of UK Higher Education and here’s an opportunity to hear how they do it, direct from some of those who make it happen. So turn up at the Renold Building, room F2 on Tuesday 6 September at 1130 to learn about the excellent work of the Subject Centres.
On the last day of the conference (8 September) we find my Bath colleague Brian Kelly of UKOLN, Lawrie Phipps of TechDis (a JISC service hosted at the Higher Education Academy) and the University of Bristol’s Caro Howell
presenting their paper (RP 381) Implementing A Holistic Approach To E-Learning Accessibility (Renold Building, room G2 at 0900).
You can download a copy of the paper and get further details about this presentation from Brian Kelly’s Web Focus site.
So as you can see I’ve changed my job a little and this change will undoubtedly be reflected in the nature of my Auricle postings. My current thinking is to focus more on the podcasting side of things, mainly because that provides a dissemination vehicle for some of the key innovators I’ll meet up with; I’m as keen to capture their thoughts and reflections as I am my own. So please be patient give me a few more weeks to get into my Academy stride and then I’ll try to ‘pump up the volume’ again.
