Learning in Our Digital World, October 2011

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student engagement in Our Digital World

Session Overviews and Speaker Biographies

Friday Evening Keynote - Coast Kamloops Hotel, Vista Room

The Senses, the Social and the Mind

Speaker: Paul Stacey
Session Overview: Join Paul Stacey as he draws on his own experiences as an online learner, and as Director of Curriculum Development for BCcampus, to explore the many facets of online student engagement. Through personal stories ranging from online wine tasting, to being in a global cohort of online students, and teaching science online using remote web-based science labs Paul shines a spotlight on inspiring real-world examples of student engagement that push at the edges of what is possible.
Speaker Bio: Paul Stacey is the Director of Curriculum Development at BCcampus in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. BCcampus works to connect the expertise, programs, and resources of all BC post-secondary institutions to promote innovation under a collaborative service delivery framework. Paul leads initiatives around online curricula and course development, open educational resources, online communities of practice, and professional development for educators across all 25 of BC’s public post secondary institutions. For over three decades Paul has led technology based education programs, in Canada and internationally, for private companies and the public post secondary sector. Paul has four degrees including a 100% online M.Ed. in Adult Learning and Global Change.

Doing it by the Book: An Introduction to the E-Textbook

Session Presenter: Norm Friesen, PhD
Session Overview: Many signs indicate that the e-textbook has finally arrived: The Amazon Kindle and the Apple iPad have been runaway successes. Students purchased ten times as many e-textbooks last year as in the previous two years, and e-books generally have become the largest-selling “format in the US for the first time ever” (Flood 2011). Apple in particular has made agreements covering as much as 90% of the US textbook market for their iPad hardware. Meanwhile, even the most established publishers, such as Elsevier and Pearson, are offering increasing numbers of textbooks in digital form.
Speaker Bio: In this workshop, Norm Friesen, Canada Research Chair in E-Learning at Thompson Rivers University, will provide an interactive, historical introduction to the most popular ebook software and platforms, and will discuss the challenges and opportunities that these are already presenting for education.

Outside the Box: Feedback Using Adobe Acrobat

Session Presenter: Colin Madland, BA, BEd, BCCT, MEd (in progress)
Session Overview: Come to this practical session to learn some tools and techniques for using Adobe Acrobat X to provide feedback to students in an engaging way, to create and edit PDF files, and to use some of the security features in Adobe Acrobat X.
Speaker Bio: Colin is the e-Learning facilitator for TRU-OL, a position he has held since April 2010. He is beginning the process of proposing and writing his Master of Education (Distance Education) thesis for Athabasca University and anticipates he will be finished by December 2012. He has several years experience teaching with and through technology at high schools in Alberta and BC in addition to spending two years teaching English in Japan. Areas of interest include faculty development, mobile learning and OERs. Colin lives with his wife and three kids in Kamloops, BC and thoroughly enjoys riding his singlespeed bike to and from work.

Introduction to Open Learning

Session Presenter: Dr. Gordon Tarzwell
Session Overview: During this presentation Dr. Tarzwell will review the governance structure of TRU with emphasis on the academic governance as it relates to the Open Learning Division of TRU. Furthermore, in the context of the powers of Planning Council for Open Learning, the definition of "Open Learning" will be reviewed.
Speaker Bio: Gordon Tarzwell holds a doctoral degree in Economics and has served as the Associate Vice-President of the Open Learning Division of Thompson Rivers University since 2007. His areas of responsibility include: Open Learning – Campus communications, course design, course delivery, prior learning assessment and recognition, as well as the assessment of other more traditional forms of learning. His current areas of interest include Open Educational Resources and providing credit for learning acquired through these types of resources.

Joint workshop: Show and Tell, with Tracking & Communication brief

Show and Tell

Session Presenter: Simon Parker | Lessons from the 2nd Grade: How to use show-and-tell to engage students
Session Overview: "Instructors need to use every possible opportunity, technique and tool to engage students. I have found that show-and-tell is a simple way to get students to more actively participate in class discussions. Making class participation, and thus show-and-tell, part of the final grade gives students an even more compelling reason to participate. Also, using items from show-and-tell in tests and/or exams gives students a further incentive to pay attention. In addition, subjects raised by the students give an indication of areas they are paying attention to, and the ones that may need more explanation. (And their levels of understanding.)"
Speaker Bio: After 20 years of management experience in retail, wholesale, and manufacturing, Simon Parker completed an MBA at York. Since then he has kept busy consulting and teaching business courses at the BBA and MBA levels.

Tracking & Communication

Please note that a overview of this workshop will be held in the morning and the extended workshop held in the afternoon.

Session Presenter: John O'Brien | Better Business Tools for Independent Study Courses
Session Overview: Each OLFM uses their own techniques to support students. Here is an opportunity to see how you might use Excel to increase student support by managing your students in a proactive way.
Speaker Bio: John O'Brien has worked with distance learning for 29 years and has tried various techniques to motivate his students. His focus is in the business area supporting five courses with 150 students.

Outside the Box: Feedback Using Adobe Acrobat

Session Presenter: Norm Friesen, PhD
Session Overview: Come to this practical session to learn some tools and techniques for using Adobe Acrobat X to provide feedback to students in an engaging way, to create and edit PDF files, and to use some of the security features in Adobe Acrobat X.
Speaker bio:Dr. Norm Friesen is Canada Research Chair in E-Learning Practices at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada. Dr. Friesen is the author of several editions of books on the effective use of online instructional software and on the implementation of technical standards for educational resources. He is also author of the monographs Re-Thinking E-Learning Research: Foundations, Methods and Practices (Peter Lang, 2009), and The Place of the Classroom and the Space of the Screen: Relational Pedagogy and Internet Technology (Peter Lang, 2011). Dr. Friesen is co-editor of the journal Phenomenology & Practice (www.phandpr.org) and on the editorial board of the Journal of Curriculum Studies. He is Director of the New Media Studies Research Centre (nms.tru.ca), and is presently undertaking federally-funded research in media and education.

Information Security Awareness

Session Presenter: Hugh Burley
Session Overview: This Information Security Awareness Essentials presentation is designed for all TRU Staff and Faculty and represents a key component of TRU's Information Security Program. This one hour interactive presentation is designed to build awareness, develop a common information security language, and to be mildly entertaining.
Speaker Bio: "The main focus of my work is information security program development and management for the University. I currently sit on the executive Information Security Committee where I act in an advisory role; manage annual awareness training, events, and communications; evaluate technologies and processes related to information security; participate in various audits; review incidents; and monitor systems; I participate in the CUCCIO Information Security Special Interest Group, Educause Security List, REN-ISAC and Chair the BCNet Information Security Working Group. Current Professional Designations: CISSP (Security), CIPP/C (Privacy), CISA (Information Systems Audit)."

The Quest for Engaging Learning Activities

Session Presenter: Melissa Jakubec
Session Overview: As part of our departmental goal to develop learning experiences that are engaging and meaningful to students who are working in a distance learning environment, we have engaged in a research project to both create a set of promising learning design patterns that work in our organizational context and develop a methodology to evaluate learning activity designs/patterns so that they can be improved. This presentation will describe our research context and learning design, results of early workshops and focus groups with instructional designers about learning activities, and survey results from learners and instructors on the effectiveness of learning activities in online courses. We will also describe our proposed methodology to help evaluate learning activity effectiveness and course designs at Open Learning and will relate this to research activity that could be done in blended or face-to-face environments.
Speaker Bio: Melissa Jakubec has been involved in post-secondary education for more than 20 years, teaching English as a Second Language before becoming an Instructional Designer in TRU's Open Learning Division, where she currently serves as chair. She believes in providing student-centered, contextualized and meaningful instruction, as well as in using technology to enhance the learning process. Many of her instructional design projects have been in the areas of the health and social service professions.

Digital Copyright

Session Presenter: Scott Blackford, B.A., J.D.
Session Overview: Scott Blackford will provide an overview of copyright laws with respect to digital sources and their use, with an emphasis on posting items to an online learning management system, like Blackboard. Scott will address common misunderstandings related to what may be posted online and whether or not permissions are required, as well as what constitutes an ‘adaptation.’
Speaker Bio: Scott Blackford completed his Bachelor of Laws degree at the University of Saskatchewan in 2006, subsequently completing his articles at the Kamloops firm, Mair Jensen Blair, LLP. While a summer student in Saskatoon, Scott had the opportunity to assist at the Inquiry into the Wrongful Conviction of David Milgaard. Scott began his role at the Intellectual Property Office of TRU in December, 2011, bringing experience in statute interpretation, protection of Intellectual Property rights by way of contract, and a commitment to a balanced approach to creator and user rights with respect to copyright.

Plenary Session: Creating Community

Session Overview: During this session, Rick Brewster (OC-Math) and Chris Morgan (Math Open Learning Faculty Member) will describe how the Math Department has worked on a model of creating closer connections between Open Learning and on campus math faculty in order to support, promote and facilitate a formal academic working relationship between the TRU-OL math group and the TRU Math & Stat Department. The purpose is to begin a dialogue on models and practices for connecting our faculty on discipline needs within TRU.

Panel Discussion: Student Focused

Student Focused Yes! But don't forget about YOU!

MODERATOR: Donna Daines
Christina McLennan
Larry Phillips
Donna Rosentreter

Join your colleagues in a panel discussion about how you can maintain your own levels of health and wellness in the midst of an increasingly technologically fragmented world.