Event: E-Learning and Beer?

We’ve been thinking about arranging an e-learning Pub Meet. A bit like e-learning and cakes but outside work hours and also to include people outside the University – Swansea College, Metropolitan University etc. It won't be a formal meeting but a chance for anyone who is interested in using technology in learning to share what they are doing and find out what others are up to.


When: Thursday 13th March from 6pm
Where: The Westbourne, Swansea

PS The Westbourne has free wifi and is in the top 50 Guinness pubs in Britain. :-)

Can you do your bit ?

18 influentual thinkers, appointed by the US National Academy of Engineering have just announced their list of the great technological challenges facing humanity in the 21st century at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston.

The list of identified challenges is:

1. Make solar energy affordable


2. Provide energy from fusion


3. Develop carbon sequestration methods


4. Manage the nitrogen cycle


5. Provide access to clean water


6. Restore and improve urban infrastructure


7. Advance health informatics


8. Engineer better medicines


9. Reverse-engineer the brain


10. Prevent nuclear terror


11. Secure cyberspace


12. Enhance virtual reality


13. Advance personalized learning


14. Engineer the tools for scientific discovery

Number 13 is interesting !

To have personalised learning (as being actively developed by Swansea University Lecturers with Oremi and a wide variety of other Web 2.0 tools) on the same list as making solar energy affordable, providing energy from fusion, providing access to clean water and preventing nuclear terror surely illustrates the importance attached to it by the great and the good - who after all, should know (I don't think any of them are on the board of directors at Blackboard).

So, do your bit to advance humanity !

For support give the E-Learning team a ring on 2250 or e-mail us at blackboard@swansea.ac.uk. We can only help on one of the 14 challenges though. The other 13 you will have to tackle yourselves ...

---

Read the press release at the US National Academies (listing the thinkers ...)

Read the largely unrelated (but kind of depressing - or exciting depending on how attached you are to your toaster) BBC article that contained this news item

Event: E-Learning & Cakes

The next E-Learning and Cakes session will on Friday 22nd February at 11:00am in Room 703 on the 7th Floor of the Library building. As usual it's not a formal meeting but a chance for anyone who is interested in using technology in learning to share what they are doing and find out what others are up to.

Event: Shock of the Old - Web 2.0 and the Connected Future

"Shock 7 will explore the issues arising from an increasingly connected future. The rise of online content-creation tools, personalised information services and new rivals to institutional learning spaces presents both an opportunity and challenge to educational technologists. How can we make the best use of these exciting new opportunities for teaching, learning and research? Can we, and should we, integrate Web 2.0 personal technologies used by the socially networked learner?"

More from http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ltg/events/shock2008/

Shock combines with Beyond Digital Natives - Old Problems New Systems

"The Beyond debate this year is focusing on Digital Natives - exploring how learning styles have changed for the "Net Generation". The debate will include Prof. Rose Luckin, Professor of Learner Centred Design at London Knowledge Lab,Prof.Sugata Mitra, Professor of Educational Technology at Newcastle University and Dr Ajit Jaokar co-author of 'Mobile web 2.0'. The speakers will explore how education has met the challenge of harnessing learning technology."

More from http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ltg/events/beyond2008/