Traveling to E-Learn 2018 in Las Vegas? Don’t Miss the Workshop Lineup!

The upcoming AACE E-Learn conference is held from October 15-18 in Las Vegas. Have you packed your bags yet? More importantly, have you checked Academic Experts to figure out your schedule and connect to other presenters and participants?

This year’s E-Learn features four days packed with 60+ parallel sessions, five keynotes and panels and eight workshops. Whether this is your first AACE conference, or you are a seasoned participant, adding a workshop to your program is a great way to work in depth on one topic, connect to other participants, and come home with a tangible result.

AACE social media intern Allie Alayan talked to some of the presenters to give you a sneak peek of the different workshop sessions and a look behind the scenes on the ideas, vision and methods of the workshop organizers.

Project Management Workshop on Monday: An Interview with Shahron Williams van Rooij

Shahron Williams van Rooij is hosting a workshop on project management, titled ‘eLearning Project Management: Adding Value to Your Marketability’. The ability to manage and eventually lead e-learning project teams is a critical skill set for building your career. In this workshop, you will learn how to apply project management principles, practices, and tools to e-learning projects.

The workshop is scheduled for Monday October 15, from 1:00- 4:30 PM.

Is this your first time at AACE E-Learn? What are you most looking forward to at this conference?

I have attended about half a dozen E-Learn Conferences since 2008 and have never been disappointed. The combination of scholars and practitioners from around the world offers a rich menu of evidence-based solutions and ideas to keep e-learning moving forward. This year, I look forward to adding the Startup Showcase to my list of “must see’s”.

Why did you decide to submit a workshop proposal?

Actually, at the recommendation of the Program Committee, I was invited to present a workshop at this year’s conference. The program chair specifically noted by expertise in project management,  usability and user experience design. I could give a workshop on each of these topics but opted for project management, since that is the least understood or even appreciated by learning and development professionals.

What key insights do you hope your participants will take away from your workshop?

The combination of learning design (“e” or otherwise) and project management expertise are key differentiators for those seeking to advance their careers.

What methods will you use during the workshop?

It’s going to be highly participatory, with small group work on precise tasks and where groups will share the results. I have found that a mix of interactive and frontal activities to introduce the core issues of the workshop work well for the four-hour time slot.

Who should be coming to your workshop and why?

Anyone with more than three years of experience in our field and who seeks to advance in the field. It’s at the three-year mark that the learning professional starts to think about leading a project team, not just working on the team. For those who don’t want to be “accidental” project managers and want to move to the intentional management of projects, this is the workshop for them.

Peer Video Workshop on Monday: An Interview with Stephanie Taitano

Stephanie Taitano is hosting another workshop on Monday afternoon, October 15, from 1:00- 4:30 PM. Her workshop is titled: How to (Technically) Build an Online Course with (Effectively Designed) Asynchronous Peer Video Exchange. The  workshop will teach the overarching and practical skills needed to develop an online course that includes multimedia and asynchronous video for peer-to-peer feedback. Using a recent course development at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine as an example, the presenter will demonstrate the use of Canvas, Camtasia, and PracticeXYZ software.

Is this your first time at AACE E-Learn? What are you most looking forward to at this conference?

Yes! I am looking forward to exchanging ideas with colleagues from around the world.

Why did you decide to submit a workshop proposal?

This past year, I have launched a few significant projects. What went well and what did not is still very fresh in my mind and I thought a workshop was a great way to share best practices.

What key insights do you hope your participants will take away from your workshop?

I hope key take aways include new insights into participants’ own projects, new ideas for overcoming common instructional design challenges, original heuristic for developing support for your projects in your organization and, last but not least, networking among colleagues!

What methods will you use during the workshop?

I will use a mix of small group discussions; think-pair-share and product demonstration.

Who should be coming to your workshop and why?

Colleagues who might benefit from this workshop are decision makers in their organization who are involved in instructional design projects from needs analyses through evaluation stages (i.e., they have a broad perspective) and would like the opportunity to step back and evaluate their projects within the context of the organizations in which they exist.

TPACK Workshop on Tuesday: Interview with Susan Silbert and DeAnna Laverick

Susan Silbert and DeAnna Laverick are hosting a workshop TPACK, titled “Modeling TPACK in Graduate Coursework to Promote Technology Integration and Leadership”. Based on the TPACK framework, the presenters will describe their team-teaching approach, technology tools and resources, strategies for leading change in technology integration, and assessment procedures. The workshop is scheduled Tuesday October 16, from 10:15AM-12:45 PM.

Is this your first time at AACE E-Learn? What are you most looking forward to at this conference?

We are both thrilled to be attending the AACE E-Learn conference and even more excited to be selected to present our workshop. We have attended SITE conferences both in person and virtually, but this is our first time attending AACE.

In the last several years, we have both been working more and more with technology in our teaching, and our goals included stretching our own comfort levels and learning and this conference fits perfectly into our own professional goals as well as our desire to support our colleagues in sharing what we have learned along the way.  Incidentally, neither of us has spent time in Las Vegas, so we are looking forward to experiencing this unique venue! We will be traveling from west-central Pennsylvania, where our weather has already changed to fall, so everything about Las Vegas, including the weather, appeals to us! We are also looking forward to meeting other AACE attendees and hearing what’s happening in both the fields of education and new technologies.

Why did you decide to submit a workshop proposal?

Last summer, we had a unique opportunity to teach a 6-credit course in one of our graduate programs, Master of Education, in our Department of Professional Studies at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Our university is one of fourteen within the PA State System of Higher Education and we have about 14,500 students attending our campus, which is located in west-central Pennsylvania, a little over an hour’s drive east of Pittsburgh.

Within our department, which is a teacher and school leadership preparation program, we work with undergraduates and graduates who are striving to support 21^st Century Learners with digital technologies. Dr. Laverick mentored Dr. Sibert through the course, and Dr. Laverick and one of our esteemed colleagues, Dr. Crystal Machado, had taught the course, Educational Technology and Change, in the past and had conducted a research study focusing on the use of the TPACK model to inform the practice of PK-12 educators who are teacher leaders in their fields. Results of the study were published in the SITE journal.

We also had the support of our department chair, Dr. Kelli Paquette, who was unable to be with us at this conference, but her leadership supported our success with the course and our conference proposal, by providing technology resources and a great deal of collegial encouragement!

What key insights do you hope your participants will take away from your workshop?

We hope attendees gain new insights and an overall understanding of how to plan and execute graduate course sessions using the Turn-around Technology Integration Pedagogy and Planning (TTIPP) Model (based on the turn-around pedagogy work of Kamler & Comber, 2005) and described in the course textbook by Roblyer and Hughes (2019). Attendees will be introduced to ideas to consider in their own higher education classroom, including a teacher-scholar model for their own research endeavors. The “turn” portion of the turn-around model encourages teachers to turn toward student interests and learn more about the how technology informs instruction in lesson planning. The TTIPP Model supports teachers in planning and executing lessons and this session will showcase how two university instructors both taught the TTIPP Model as well as used it in their own instruction of a graduate course. Additionally, attendees in the workshop should expect to leave with ideas for graduate student projects, guest speakers, and teaching methods that will enhance any course.

What methods will you use during the workshop?

We plan to break the three and half hour workshop into chunks, first providing an overview of the graduate course and then sharing information and agendas from each of our ten class sessions using an interactive slideshow and sharing links and websites. We also plan to have active participation, so attendees should bring their own devices, like a tablet or phone. Lastly, we will be going on a virtual field trip, which will be customized to the attendees’ disciplines.

Who should be coming to your workshop and why? 

Our workshop will be an overview of our 6-credit graduate course entitled Educational Change and Technology and is geared toward faculty in higher education who would like insight into how we planned and executed an intensive, 5-week summer graduate course for mainly practicing PK-12 teachers, which included a research study on improving practice and leading change related to the use of digital technologies. Our goal for attendees is that they leave our three and half hour session equipped with ideas and insights that could benefit their own students.