Well the Leading Learning Conference is over for another year, although the discussions are still going on in the online community.  A couple of quick reflections:

With reference to Game Based Learning, a Ludic epistemology – a theory of play based learning and knowledge, rather than simply engagement when referring to gaming in education.

Workplace rather than workshop learning, since most of our learning occurs on the job and informally, rather than the few times educators get pulled out for PD or go to a conference.  It was nice to see a more self directed approach to PD, with a mentorship component to it.

It was really nice meeting Patricia Glogowski and listening to her presentation “Creating Open Learning Environments with Online Tools: Blogging and Podcasting.”  There was quite a bit of positive feedback that I was hearing from attendees and a buzz about her topic focus on the ESL learner.  (Patricia’s presentation notes)

Rob and I did a presentation titled “Web 2.0 Promises and Potentials” that seemed to go over quite well.  We focused on five shifts :

1.    User Created Content
2.    New Forms of Publishing and Research
3.    Webware vs. Software
4.    Mobile Learning
5.    Openness

The Powerpoint presentation has been posted  on Commun-IT.org

The online community for the Leading Learning conference is buzzing. A number of presenters have posted questions about their upcoming sessions as well as engage in pre-conference discussions. I haven’t seen this type of online interaction as a pre-cursor to a conference in Ontario before. If you have a few K12 examples I would love to hear about them.

The online community is supported using ELGG through Commun-It.org. I can’t thank Tim Hawes enough for all his support for the Leading Learning online community. ELGG has a social networking component of adding “friends” (other members of Commun-It.org) into your own profile, as well as joining different communities within the web site.

Perhaps we will one day have a few more sessions that are fully online. I’m thinking of the wonderful experiences of the K12Online Conference. I added my session from K12 Online into the conference wiki space as a virtual session, with the hopes that more people will feel interested in participating. Especially those who wanted to attend the conference as a presenter but could not.

Feel free to jump into the conference discussions or the wiki.

• http://www.commun-it.org/community/leadandlearn/forum/
• http://www.commun-it.org/community/leadandlearn/weblog/
• http://www.commun-it.org/wiki/index.php/Category:LeadingLearning2007

Please use the conference tag is “LL2007” on related posts and items. These tags are aggregated on the online community home page at http://leadinglearning.commun-it.org from feeds from all over the web. You can also find RSS feeds for the different parts of the online community on that home page.

(full disclosure – I am on the Development Committee for the Main Conference) 

An Invitation To You:

Leading Learning 2007 presents its third annual conference May 6-8 at Deerhurst Resort in Huntsville, Ontario. The title of this year’s conference is “Making Connections”.  

We invite you to participate in this interactive learning conference, where you will explore how educators are making effective use of technology to develop innovative models for teaching, learning and training.

Educators will enrich their thoughtful and effective use of ICT to enhance teaching practice and increase student achievement.  

Leading-edge e-learning programs, technologies, and the effective practices presented at this conference will provide participants with opportunities to interact, network, engage and make connections.

Web-registration is now open at www.leadinglearning.org.

Leading Learning 2007 is jointly hosted by, Toronto Catholic DSB, Trillium-Lakelands DSB, Peel DSB, York Region DSB, The Strategic Alliance for eLearing and York University .

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Please tag items related to the Leading Learning 2007: Making Connections with "LL2007".

(Full Disclosure – I am on the Development Committee for the Leading Learning Conference)

The sessions I attended:ÂÂ

Day One – Audio Reflections (WAV – 404 kb – 4:13m)

1. Return on Imagination: Fostering Imagination through Technology in an Accelerating World Tom Wujec
2. Enriching Curriculum & Overcoming Distances with Interactive Videoconferencing in the Classroom Dave Nash, Elaine Shuck & Robert Bernola
3. “You want to let the students to do WHAT???!!!” Jeff Catania
4. Digital Literacy and Teenagers Pete Levan & Ronda Lenti
5. Taking Podcasts to School John Maschak
6. “Multimedia, from Webquests to PowerPoint, Movies to Blackboard” Richard Pierog & William Lee

Day Two – Audio Reflections (WAV - 612 kb – 6:23m)

1. Sowing the Seeds for a More Creative Society Mitchel Resnick
2. e-Learning Ontario – Innovation in Ontario Education Alison Slack &
   Carolijn MacNeil-Verbakel
3. Learning Objects – e-Learning Ontario Rose Burton-Spohn & Don Snider
4. Rich Site Summary is Changing the Web – Will it Change our Classrooms? Quentin D’Souza (RSS Presentation Handout)
5. Networked Writing Communities: Improving Writing Skills through Reflective Collaboration Konrad Glogowski

The audio reflections come from my cell phone on the way home from the conference.  My voice mail is automatically sent to my email address when I don’t pick up the phone.  Since the .wav file was so small, I decided to post it as is. If you have trouble playing it, let me know, and I will put it in another format.

I really enjoyed the first annual Leading Learning Conference at York University this year. There were many great presentations. I came away with lots of great ideas. I found the conversations in the halls to have been just as stimulating as the sessions. It is great to see what other boards, companies and educators are doing in this emerging field.