CIT 2007

1. The Politics and Policies of Technology Deployment, Use, and Maintenance

Due to the tremendous growth in online learning over a relatively short period of time, campuses implemented procedures and policies as needed, but they have not necessarily become official policy, nor is it always clear where the responsibility lies for making, approving and enforcing the various grassroots policies that have sprung from necessity.

What policies does your campus have in place that address Strategic Plans, Future Vision or Quality Assurance? Is “policy” a controversial word for online learning on your campus? Who’s in charge of making policy? Who should be? How are policies documented and communicated? Examples of topics that may fit within this track:

• The Changing Face of Intellectual Property and Fair Use Strategic Plans
• 5-Year Plans
• IT and Digital Policy Design and Implementation
• Technology and Ethical Considerations
• Fighting Plagiarism in a Digital World
• Enrollment Control Issues and Policies in Distance Learning
• Quality Assurance Procedures
• End/Beginning of Semester Procedures and Storing of Data
• Online Student Service Policies and Practices for Distance Learning
• Faculty Union Panel – Issues of Course Load, Class Time, Faculty Teaching Time, and Other Campus Policy Initiatives

2. Reflections on Technology in the Disciplines

The value of reflection cannot be overestimated when considered in the context of academe. It is productive enterprise for faculty and professionals to reflect on their uses of instructional tools and supports and to critically consider how such tools impact on the process of student learning. Share your ideas, practices, successes, near successes, research, analyses, perceptions, beliefs, or conclusions on topics relating to the use of technology within your discipline. Of special interest this year: How are students linking ethical practices and behaviors in their uses of technology to citizenship and leadership?

3. Strategies for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment

Sound pedagogical principles to reach the deepest level of student learning are at the core of what we do in Higher Education. This track will serve to reexamine our teaching and learning strategies, spanning from the traditional face-to-face classroom environment to the new digital/online learning environments.

This track will also engage us in integrating assessment strategies into our teaching. We will share those methods we use to assess our effectiveness and demonstrate that learning has occurred.

• Hybrid, Blended Pedagogy – Teaching Methods
• The Use of Humor in Teaching
• Active Learning Strategies and Student Centered Learning in both the Online and Face-to-Face Learning Environments
• Learning Communities
• Learning Outcomes and Assessment
• Designing and Using Rubrics for Effective Assessment
• Pedagogy in the Asynchronous Learning Environment
• Faculty Development
• Faculty Mentoring
• Teaching the Millennial Generation
• Technology and Student Advisement
• Activities of Campus Centers for Teaching and Learning/Centers for Teaching and Learning with Technology

4. Exploring and Implementing Emerging Technologies

Emerging technologies play an important role in providing new tools for empowering learners. Topics expected in this track include:

• New Tools and Methods for Managing Information
  Information overload is a consequence of living in a digital world and it is a persistent and ubiquitous problem. What are the strategies and tools we can use to organize and make sense of a digital morass?
• Web 2.0
  Web 2.0 promises to change the web from a collection of static information pages to a full-fledged application environment. How do these tools create efficiencies and enhance our productivity? How can we use them to design and develop new learning activities for our students?
• Mobile-education
  Mobile education is an education without walls. It presumes the peripatetic student who is not necessarily classroom or even institutionally bound. What tools do we use to meet the needs of an increasingly mobile population? What ramifications does this mobility have on our conceptions of education and the institutions that deliver it?
• Libraries
  Libraries have always been the bedrock of the academy where learning and books were synonymous. The digital world has challenged the figurative and literal place of libraries within institutions of higher learning. How are libraries reinventing and redefining themselves to meet this challenge?
• Learning Commons
  Digital technologies allow us to connect, share and collaborate in ways that were previously only theoretically possible. What are the examples of learning commons in development? How do they affect our notions of how students learn and how teachers and institutions can best serve those learning processes?
• Simulations and Gaming
  Game theory is all the rage. Heuristic or trial-and-error learning that goes on in game play defines the habits of today’s students. How are we adapting our teaching to our students’ proficiencies.

5. Professional and Continuing Education

The education of professionals–-lawyers, physicians, other health professionals, teachers, engineers, etc.--often present unique instructional challenges that can be addressed with technology based solutions. Similarly, lifelong continuing education, as well as work force development initiatives, are distinct opportunities for the application of non-traditional instructional solutions.

CIT 2007 invites presenters to address how they deal with these learning communities. Concepts in this realm include, but are not limited to:

• Problem-based learning
• Synchronous/Asynchronous distance learning techniques
• PDA's, cellular phones, laptops and other nomadic computing technologies in professional training
• Course Evaluation and Assessment
• Technology Innovations in Professional Education
• Course management and other web-based tools in professional and continuing education
• Images, streaming media, virtual reality, simulations, and all those other high maintenance technologies that make professional education "special"

6. Social Networking, Collaboration, and Sharing

During the past few years there has been a surge in interest in internet programs that fall under the general category of social networking. The most obvious social applications are those used by our students, such as FaceBook, MySpace, Flickr, and Friendster. Other examples that seem to fall under the general category of social networking software would be blogs, plogs (project logs), vlogs (video logs), Wikipedia, wiki textbooks, RSS feeds, social tagging, podcasts, and E-Portfolios. Despite the popularity of these programs, there has been relatively little discussion of how they might be used individually for education, and even less about how they might be integrated to produce a new type of learning space. The goal of this track is to explore the educational affordances and constraints of these social approaches.

• Digital Repositories
• MySpace, Facebook
• E-Portfolios
• Blogging, Wikis, etc.
• Learning Space Design with Technology

Developed by the SUNY FACT Advisory Council – July 2006