I’ve worked on the JISC Innovating E-Learning Conference for several years now and we’ve been adjusting the format to respond to changing technologies and expectations of delegates.

This year there are quite a few changes…

The conference will be run in an instance of Moodle managed by the Netskills Team. It seems well suited to the task and will feel familiar to lots of delegates I think. We have a full pre-conference activity week starting on Monday 13th November – I’m really looking forward to the first session led by Rob Englebright from the JISC E-Learning team entitled Looking back to shape the future: The History of learning technology in 100 objects…

We also have the usual mix of interesting keynotes and sessions and my last few posts have highlighted some of those that I have been involved with.In the past each session had a separate discussion area where people could have more in-depth and reflective discussions than the fast moving live sessions allow.

What I have always wanted to see happening at the conference though are conversations that occur across the sessions – ones that look at the bigger picture and focus outwards to issues that cross over and affect a range of activities.

So I am really excited that this year we are going to try something quite new…

Shaping up –  looking forward

This will feature two live sessions and a dedicated discussion forum that spans the entire conference. The aim is to encourage conversations around how we are living with, embracing and designing with disruption and how we can develop creative approaches to change the way we do things.

The aim is to:

  • Challenge participants – bring new ideas from visionary leaders, people with fresh and holistic thinking
  • Help participants to make connections – ideas, themes and also people
  • Promote collaboration between participants – an opportunity to for participants to identify others they might like to work with to take the ideas forward

So we have asked 6 fabulous people who bring a wide range of expertise, experiences and perspectives to help us do this. In the first session on Tuesday 20th Nov at 3pm we have

  • Big picture perspective: Simon Walker (University of Greenwich)
  • Institutional perspective: Ronan O’Beirne (Bradford College)
  • Practitioner perspective: Richard Jones (New Bucks)

And on Thursday 22nd Nov  at 3pm we have:

  • Institutional perspective: Peter Chatterton (Independent consultant)
  • Teaching and learning practices: Gabi Witthaus (University of Leicester)
  • Learners as digital pioneers: Helen Beetham (Independent consultant)

The two sessions are closely linked and will be aiming to draw together some of the interesting conversations that have happened during the conference as well as stimulating debate.

We want you to come along and join the conversations – we hope this new approach will be really fruitful.