Getting ready for E-Learn

E-Learn 2008 is shaping up to a great learning experience for conference attendees and presenters. A quick look through the conference program reveals a good blend of theory, practice, research, and technology. Congrats to organizers!

One of the more substantial trends in education – and history may well render this the most substantial development in over the last century – is a growing shift to openness within education. Keynote and invited speaker addresses in this years conference will be speaking to this topic. It is, much like attention to global warming, a quiet revolution that has no clear centre, yet promises to substantially reorganize society and education in particular. This topic was a recent focus in an online course I’m co-facilitating. What is openness? What are open educational resources? What about open teaching models? Can open accreditation be far behind? It’s truly and exciting time to be in education!

My particular interest in openness is how it shapes our capacity to connect with information and with others. In a networked world, inability to access either information or conversations with others is a barrier to learning. As educators in the public space, elimination of barriers to learning is an important, even ethical, responsibility. E-Learn 2008 promises to be a great forum for discussing these important educational developments.