Closing Keynote: Friday 5th December, 4.00pm

 

New Approaches to Visualising Learning Designs

Professor James Dalziel

Macquarie University

One of the most important dimensions of LAMS is its visual authoring environment for creating and sharing Learning Designs. The drag and drop approach to modelling activities has helped educators build engaging sequences of student activities, but even more important, it has help educators reflect on their pedagogical approaches to teaching and learning. For some educators, the experience of visualising Learning Designs appears to help make educational planning processes more explicit (rather than existing just below consciousness). This presentation will discuss the importance of visualisation in authoring Learning Designs, and propose new visual models to be considered for future versions of LAMS (complementing the existing authoring approach).

Biographical notes

James is the Director of the Macquarie University E-Learning Centre Of Excellence (MELCOE) in Sydney, Australia, and also a Director of the LAMS Foundation and LAMS international Pty Ltd. He is known nationally and internationally for his research into and development of innovations in e-learning, and technical standards. James has directed and contributed significantly to e-learning projects such as the Meta-Access Management System project (MAMS), The Collaborative Online Learning and Information Services project (COLIS), and the Learning Activity Management System (LAMS) project.

Contact

Professor James Dalziel

Macquarie University E-Learning Centre Of Excellence (MELCOE)

Macquarie University, Australia

Email:  james@melcoe.mq.edu.au

 

Keynote Address 3: Friday 5th December, 3.30pm

 

Learning Design: Building the Field of Dreams—Challenges, Opportunities, Prognostications

Paul Gagnon

Nanyang Technology University

This presentation will focus on the nature of the disruption to the existing monolithic learning paradigm that online learning and open source learning design tools like LAMS are enabling and facilitating as we build an interactive, learner-centred, instructional field of dreams. To highlight the challenges, opportunities and prognostications consonant with this disruption, specific references will be drawn from Nanyang Technological University’s (NTU) experiences in the adoption and rollout of LAMS over the past three years. In particular, two applications will be profiled: First, LAMS as the design and instructional anchor to a collaboration between the Centre for Educational Development and the College of Engineering in the development and piloting of several fully online Distance Education(DE) courses for a Master of Science degree. And second, the recent support and selection by the university’s senior management of LAMS as the designated key interactive technology to facilitate the university’s move towards a campus-wide adoption of an undergraduate Blended Learning Pedagogy.

Biographical notes

Mr Paul Gagnon is the Senior Deputy Director in the Centre for Educational Development at Nanyang Technological University. He is responsible for Courseware and Content Development. His research interests include how to successfully morph existing effective F2F pedagogical practices to online learning environments, the role of online pedagogical agents, and the relevance of the latest research in Cognitive Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience to advance online teaching and learning. He has led teams in pioneering (i) effective online course development and delivery, (ii) the use of Content Management Delivery Systems, (iii) mobile learning applications, and (iv) the use of synchronous Virtual Classroom technology.

Contact

Paul Gagnon

Senior Deputy Director (Faculty Development)
Centre for Educational Development
76 Nanyang Drive,
Nanyang University, Singapore 637331
Email: pgagnon@ntu.edu.sg

Keynote Address 2: Friday 5th December, 10.00am

 

Students as Designers

Matthew Kearney
University of Technology

Leanne Cameron
Macquarie University

Shaping and developing our students as thinkers and designers for the classrooms of the future presents today’s educators with many challenges. One of these challenges for students is the selection and modeling of thoughtful and adaptive approaches to learning design. While it is important to realise the potential of Web 2.0 tools, it is even more important for students to learn how to plan their integration and their effective pedagogical use. In this presentation, two teacher educators share how they are attempting to do this with their students. A number of their students have been invited along to share their experiences first hand.

Biographical notes

Matthew is a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Education at the University of Technology, Sydney, where he coordinates undergraduate e-learning subjects in Teacher Education programs. His research and development interests are in the area of e-learning and he is a member of the Faculty’s Designs for Learning research cluster. He has completed several research projects investigating technology-mediated learning in both school and teacher education contexts.

Leanne is currently working with MELCOE (Macquarie University’s E-Learning Centre of Excellence) in Sydney, Australia and is lectures on a number of undergraduate and post-graduate units. Until April 2007, she was a lecturer with the Australian Centre for Educational Studies at Sydney’s Macquarie University. Prior to that Leanne spent a number of years working as a teacher in both primary and secondary schools and as Technology Trainer for the Department of Education’s Training & Development Directorate.

Contact

Matthew Kearney

University of Technology, Sydney, Australia
Email: Matthew.Kearney@uts.edu.au

Leanne Cameron

Research Co-Ordinator, MELCOE,
Macquarie University, NSW, 2109 Australia
Phone: +61 9850 4142
Email: leanne.cameron@mq.edu.au

Keynote Address 1: Friday 5th December, 9.15am

 

Conceptualising Learning Design as both an analytical and creative process

Diana Laurillard
London Knowledge Lab, UK

The learning design process is necessarily in part an analytical process, that has to work within given and self-imposed constraints such as learner characteristics, institutional requirements, curriculum, assessment requirements, timing, duration, logistics. It is also necessarily a creative process, as the teacher or lecturer draws on their experience to develop the best possible learning context, support and guidance for their learners. As with any design process, there is a tension between the two modes of working. This is further complicated by having to support collaboration in design. And conceptualising the design of learning is especially difficult, because theory is not as clearly articulated as in many other design contexts, such as engineering and architecture.

The presentation will propose some principles for conceptualising the two perspectives on learning design within a digital environment.

Biographical notes

Professor Laurillard is Chair of Learning with Digital Technologies in the School of Mathematics, Science and Technology at London University. She has expertise in many areas of e-learning including: research and development of e-learning across numerous subject areas, learners, and learning technologies; strategy development in educational policy at institutional and government levels. She has conducted considerable research into pedagogy in maths, science, engineering and modern languages..

Contact

Diana Laurillard

London Knowledge Lab, UK