Visiting Speakers – Page 7 – Digital Learning Dispatches

We are pleased to report that the Digital Learning Research Symposium we hosted at the start of November, which attracted around 200 participants, was very successful.

After the Symposium we invited delegates to provide feedback on the event by completing an online evaluation. Thank you to those who responded to the survey (67 participants) and 100% of survey respondents rated the Symposium as ‘good’ or ‘excellent’. Similarly, 95% of respondents rated the value of the Symposium as ‘good’ or ‘excellent’, with 98% of people rating very highly the overall professionalism of the event. The administrative organisation was also rated highly and 94% of respondents indicated that they would attend a similar symposium if it was offered again in the future. A more detailed summary of the evaluation report can be downloaded from the link below.

• Evaluation report [pdf]

A copy of the Research Symposium Proceedings with titles, abstracts and suggested further readings is available from the following link:

• Symposium Proceedings

The suite of videos provide a record and taste of the opening session and major keynote presentations over the course of the Research Symposium.

Earlier this month Professor Norm Vaughan gave a visiting scholar presentation on the topic of blended learning. Norm argued, citing the words of Gladwell (2000), that we have gone over the “tipping point”; blended learning has become an educational epidemic. The three societal forces that have converged (the perfect wave) to drive this epidemic are technology, financial constraints, and quality concerns. The blended approaches to learning that have arisen to address these forces have lead to three major non-contradictory affordances – effectiveness, efficiency, and convenience.

Set against this backdrop, Professor Vaughan’s talk was designed to provide participants with an opportunity to share and discuss strategies for designing, facilitating, and leading blended learning courses and programmes.

More specifically, the session offered participants with the opportunity to share and discuss strategies for: (i) designing and organizing a blended course, (ii) facilitating and moderating a blended course, and (iii) directing and leading a blended course. It is fair to say that Norm explored all three of these themes with considerable passion and the audience was highly engaged in ideas around creating and sustaining communities of inquiry.

Professor Vaughan is Co-founder of the Blended Online Design Network (BOLD), a member of the Community of Inquiry Research Group, the Associate Editor of the International Journal of Mobile and Blended Learning and he is on the Editorial Boards of the International Journal of Excellence in e-Learning, Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology, the International Journal of E-Learning & Distance Education, the Journal on Centres for Teaching & Learning, the Learning Communities Journal. and the Journal of Information Fluency.