E-Learning Conference-University of Ulster

Richard has already mentioned here some key points which I raised in my main report on the Pathfinder wiki in relation to Web 2.0 technologies and teaching and learning at DMU.

This was my preamble to that report about what was an informative and inspirational conference.

I attended The University of Ulster’s sixth annual all-Ireland e-learning conference which was held held at the Jordanstown campus on Thursday 17th January 2008.

The aim of the conference was to raise awareness of the benefits of using on-line technologies in teaching, learning and assessment. The conference addressed themes associated with the creation, support and development of an e-learning community, with particular emphasis on the impact of e-learning.

This conference was a pleasure to intend. Most of the delegates were from Irish universities and the atmosphere was friendly and the sessions most accessible for the non technically-minded, like me! Speakers were most happy to share ideas and point us towards useful web-links, some of which I am sharing here. I realised that I actually understood virtually all the terminology, even ‘mash-up’, (thanks, Richard!). Also that DMU, unlike quite a few other places, is lucky that it does not bar its staff and students from social-networking sites. Some people reported an arduous process of having to beg access for individual sites; multiply that by goodness knows how many and you get a good idea of how time-consuming a process that must be.

If and when I get access to the slides from this conference, I'll let you know!