23rd Annual Conference on Distance Teaching & Learning
| Published date | 30 October 2007 |
| Pages | 15-16 |
| Date | 30 October 2007 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/07419050710874205 |
| Author | Ulrike Dieterle |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science |
23rd Annual Conference on Distance
Teaching & Learning
Ulrike Dieterle
LIBRARY HITECH NEWS Number 9/10 2007, pp. 15-16, #Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 0741-9058, DOI 10.1108/07419050710874205 15
The city between the lakes,
Madison, Wisconsin, continues to host
one of the largest international
gatherings of distance teaching and
learning enthusiasts. Sponsored by the
University of Wisconsin-Madison and
organized by Distance Education
Professional Development within the
School of Education, the annual event
brings together nearly 1,000
participants, representing educators,
business, the military, developers,
designers, program directors,
researchers and consultants who all
provide varying perspectives on
distance technologies, learning and
teaching. Librarians, once almost
invisible at this venue, are now active
presenters and participants.
For over two decades, this
conference has provided cutting-edge
information on the latest in distance
learning trends, strategies and practices.
This year was no exception.
Beginning with a Welcome-to-
Wisconsin reception on Tuesday
evening, the momentum continued in
full swing for three jam-packed days
offering 25 optional one-day and half-
day workshops, ten unique program
tracks offering a total of 80
presentations, 20 roundtable discussion
sessions, 16 course design showcases,
special topic forums in the lecture hall,
e-posters, dedicated sessions on social
networking, and three inspiring keynote
speakers. If all this sounds like
information on steroids, it is; but
conference organizers, in their wisdom,
provide the proceedings as a take-away
and, this year, the proceedings came on
a handy flash drive.
The opening keynote speaker, Mark
David Milliron (University of Texas
Austin) jump-started the conference
with his energetic presentation on ``My
generation, your generation: we're all
in this together''. He talked about the
``information swirl'' that we find all
around us and about major themes in
our society today ± the blurring and
blending of education and technology,
the demands for mobility and
flexibility, the integration of gaming as
a learning genre for all ages, the
increasingly important role of social
networking tools, how data analytics
and diagnostics lead to customized
services, speculations about high-
impact engagement tools like
holograms and all the while retaining
our human touch. He provided his
message with humor, ample references
to readable materials and data to be
more thoroughly digested at a later
time.
Darcy Walsh Hardy (University of
Texas System) energized the audience
with the afternoon keynote on Thursday
by talking about maintaining a balance
``between driving the organization
forward and creating a nurturing and
productive environment for staff''. Her
easy presentation style was a great
wrap-up to a busy day.
Christopher Dede (Harvard),
officially closed the conference over
lunch with his humorous, and
sometimes cynical commentary on the
opportunities and challenges in
changing teaching and assessment
through the cyber infrastructure of the
twenty-first century. He emphasized the
importance of collaboration, of shifts in
knowledge bases and lightning-fast
change. His real-world examples of
virtual-world learning that is currently
taking place through environments such
a ``River City'' in schools across the
nation, brought clarity to all of the
combined stimuli of the past three days.
A number of major themes were
repeated throughout the conference in
various permutations, e.g.
collaboration, games and sims, social
networking tools, effective course
design, innovative technologies and
creating communities. And, as in
previous years, there were many
selections covering research and
analysis of the best distance learning
tools, applications, practices and
combinations. Some close-up samples
of specific sessions follow.
James West and Margaret West,
Western Illinois University, provided
``Wikis for online collaboration in the
instructional design process'', a lively
and well-organized talk with a room
filled to capacity. Providing examples
of wikis as collaborative tools,
presenters demonstrated different wiki
formats, the benefits of creating a
``sandbox'' for experimental work,
some strong collaborative features and
more. They conducted the session
almost totally in a Q&A format which
proved effective and engaging.
David Twitchell, US Department of
Veteran Affairs, presented
``Collaboration produces blended
learning'', a case study of the VITAL
Collaborative Training Network. He
provided a close-up of five federal
agencies, the Air Force, Army, Coast
Guard, Navy and Veteran's Health
Administration, working closely
together to develop sharable and
reusable training content online. The
presentation provided an interesting
example of how very independent
agencies can collaboratively blend Web
space, classrooms, laboratories and
clinical educational experiences to
produce effective training opportunities
for diverse user groups.
Pam Scheibel, University of
Wisconsin-Madison, and Debra Jensen,
University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire,
presented ``Work smarter not harder:
collaborative faculty development
regarding technology'', which provided
a look into a collaborative distance
nursing program shared by five
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