On Wednesday, June 30 2010, I presented a paper titled The Challenge of Digital Technologies to Educational Reform. The abstract to the paper follows:

Although educational reform efforts have failed repeatedly over the last 40 years, this paper posits that the cultural revolution currently underway as a result of the widespread use of digital technologies will put additional pressure on the traditional culture of the school. This paper queries how teacher educators might react to these challenges given that the first wave of people that has grown up with Web 2.0 technologies is entering teacher education programs. The social interactions associated with the ideas of “digital publics” and “collective intelligence” are conceptualized as opportunities to create radically restructured learning experiences within a teacher education program. Teacher educators would do well to find ways to leverage the potential of digital publics and collective intelligence to create productive learning experiences in their classrooms.

Thank you to everyone who attended the presentation.

Download the paper

The Educational Informatics (EI) Lab at UOIT, of which I am a member, would like to invite you to a pre-conference symposium at Ed-Media 2010.

Program description:
“The increasingly symbiotic relationship between society and digital technology suggests that studying one is impossible without studying the other. Technological innovations are fueled by a seemingly ever-growing demand for sophisticated communication devices that serve multiple purposes such as voice and data communication, personal information access points, collaboration tools, multimedia recording and editing, data presentation, GPS, and measurement instruments – just to name a few. Simultaneously, society is being shaped by the power and ubiquity of technological devices and processes that serve us… sometimes to the point of addiction. Over the past 150 years, technological advances and research in medicine served to improve general health and extend life expectancies. Today, there is a need to focus on digital technologies in education to understand how its sociological and technological interdependencies can have similar effects on education over the next 50 years. This ED-MEDIA pre-conference symposium will explore these interrelationships.”

Topics
• Epistemological and/or Sociological Perspectives on Digital Technologies
• Going beyond Interactive Learning Environments
• Co-operative / Collaborative Technologies
• Mobile Technologies
• Cloud Computing
• Online Pedagogical Issues
• Technological Competencies

Call for Papers: Papers may be written in “short” form (max 2,500 words, excluding references) or “long” form (max 6,000 words, excluding references). Long form papers should take the form of either a research proposal (data collection is incomplete) or a research report (data collection and analysis is complete). All papers should be written in a style consistent with the APA manual of style (6th edition). Participants should be prepared to upload a PDF version of their papers by May 15, 2010 to provide everyone with the opportunity to review ideas before the pre-conference. Proposals for papers should be limited to 700 words (excluding references).

Submit to: roland.vanoostveen@uoit.ca by March 8, 2010.
Submitters will be notified by March 29, 2010.

Format of the Symposium: The symposium will take the form of a “working” conference. Each participant will be assigned to one of three break-out groups, based on the major theme in their paper, for the majority of the day. It is expected that this format will provide participants to engage deeply with issues in a small-group format. Each breakout group will give a brief summary presentation to the main group at the end of the day. Discussants will also participate in small-group sessions to provide additional context for their comments at the end of the day.

Program:
08:00 Introduction UOIT Facilitators
08:15 Keynote Address William Muirhead, UOIT (Whole Group)
09:00 Working Session 1 Short Paper Summaries (Working Groups)
09:50 Break
10:00 Working Session 2 TBD by Working Groups
10:50 Break
11:00 Working Session 3 TBD by Working Groups
12:00 Lunch
13:00 Summary Status Check (Working Groups to Whole Group)
13:40 Working Session 4 TBD by Working Groups
14:40 Break
14:50 Panel Discussion TBA (Whole Group)
15:30 Closing Keynote Address Maggie McPherson, Leeds Uni. (Whole Group)
16:00 Closing UOIT Facilitators

Organization of Working Groups:
Each working group will be composed of participants who have a paper that is relevant to a particular theme. During the first working session, participants will each present a short (10-minute) summary of their paper to the rest of their working group. The group will then decide how best to discuss the papers and develop ideas for the remainder of the day. Each group will be responsible for presenting a short (10 minute) summary of their discussion to the entire group during the session immediately following lunch. It is hoped that working together in small groups might facilitate discussion and produce preliminary working partnerships.

Cost:
Symposium registration is $145 USD and includes morning and afternoon beverage breaks and lunch.