Classrooms, Continents and Clouds: Who Moved My Chalk? SUNY Plattsburgh May 25 – 28, 2010 Tracks 1. Health Education The venue for CIT 2010, SUNY Plattsburgh, is home to one of SUNY’s baccalaureate nursing programs. The Department of Nursing has been involved in distance education for over 20 years and has been working to integrate human simulation, using SimMan, in education for the past three years. CIT 2010 offers a special opportunity for faculty and staff professionals involved in the education and training of physicians, nurses, and other health professionals to gather together to share expertise, experiences, and successes. Concepts in this realm include, but are not limited to: * Problem-based learning * Distance Learning in the Health Sciences – synchronous and asynchronous * PDA’s and handhelds (including Smartphones) in professional training * Informatices Education for Health Care professionals * Course evaluation and assessment * Technology innovations in health care education, e.g. Class-Capture software, simulated electronic medical records documentation, etc. * Course management and other web-based tools in health sciences and medical education * Technology, life-long learning and the health professional * Images, streaming media, atlases, the visible human, virtual reality, simulations, and all those other high maintenance technologies that make health sciences education “special” * Use of social networking tools and other Web 2.0 technologies to improve medical and health science education and to create collaborations, communications and communities of practice. 2. Learning Spaces Learning spaces, both physical and virtual, provide the environments for campuses to re- think where learning occurs. This track explores some of the new configurations, design considerations and support services being brought together throughout our campuses. Description, observation and assessment of non-traditional classrooms, labs, libraries and studios that foster formal and informal opportunities for student engagement are encouraged. Examples of best practice in planning and supporting hybrid mobile learning communities, providing flexible spaces responsive to multiple learning styles, and preparing for next generation networked, sustainable environments are encouraged. 3. Global and Mobile Where are our students? Or perhaps more importantly, when are our students? Where is your classroom or your office? Continuous advancements in technological miniaturization and ever more pervasive communications infrastructures throughout the world are impacting our classrooms and overall education environment daily. Is that student in your online class in China or one of the residence halls on campus? Can you teach your regular complement of classes while also conducting research on another continent? Was the message you just received from a student sent from a computer lab or a smartphone? More than any time in recent history, faculty and students are utilizing computer and communications technology to better integrate higher education with other parts of their life including jobs, research, family, and lifestyle preferences. The technology to accomplish this integration is affordable and powerful. All economic, social, cultural, and technological signs appear to indicate this is not a fad, but a growing and evolving trend. How will the new realities of mobility and “globility” affect students’ expectations of their learning experiences? How will these changes affect decisions faculty make about designing course activities and assignments? Sessions in this track will highlight innovative solutions by faculty to address the transformation of higher education by shifting locations, time zones, and modalities enabled by mobile technology. 4. Open Everything The Internet is creating a brave new world that allows educators to create, share, reuse and remix all things digital. Open initiatives are dramatically changing the landscape of teaching, learning and research. * The Open Educational Resources (OER) movement along with Open Educational Licenses (like Creative Commons) provides instructional materials that are freely available to instructors, students or self learners. * The Open Courseware initiative, started at MIT, allows anyone with access the Internet to utilize full courses including lecture notes, exams, videos, etc. * The Open Textbook movement is taking seed and hopes to provide faculty and students alternatives to high cost commercial textbooks. * The Open Source Software movement continues to evolve and challenge many of the commercial providers of software used in education. * The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, (SPARC) supports libraries in the emergence of open access and new scholarly communication models that expand the dissemination of scholarly research. Open Access is democratizing access to research information by providing timely, free, online dissemination of institutional research outputs. Potential discussions for this track are wide ranging and may include: * Investigation of Open Textbooks as an alternative to commercial textbooks * Creating, licensing and distributing Open Education Resources * Selecting Open Source Software tools for educational use * Faculty benefits in embracing “Open” * Open and the American Graduation Initiative: Stronger American Skills through Community Colleges * Roles of libraries and their institutions as “publishers” of locally created open content * Valuing “Open Scholarship” within the peer-review and promotion and tenure processes 5. Balancing Pedagogy and Technology Pervasive technology. Whether you love or hate technology, and most fall somewhere along the continuum, technology now permeates all aspects of our lives. Nowhere is this more apparent than the classroom, where cell phones, laptops and pervasive wireless range from being mild distracting to completely disruptive. Many new classrooms are being constructed to encourage electronic collaboration, and the presence of instructor workstations and projectors in most teaching facilities have become routine. While most educators recognize the value of technology, its seamless integration into education has proven to be difficult. There is often a steep learning curve, technology is constantly changing, support is often minimal, and accessibility and reliability sometimes fluctuate. The effectiveness and pedagogical value of many technological tools is often unclear, especially when other methods that rely on minimal technology may be equally effective. However, promotion review committees routinely use the integration of technology into teaching as a measure of both quality and currency. Additionally, students are introduced to technology at an early age, and are exposed to it on a daily basis, so it is an expected part of the educational process. Some examples of topics that might be addressed under this track include: * SUNY’s Course Redesign Initiative * Social networking and education * New Media Consortium – The Horizon Project * Maintaining and sustaining technological infrastructure in the classroom * Advantages/disadvantages to early adoption of emerging technologies * Student expectations and reactions to technology * Value/integration of virtual worlds into teaching and learning * Integration of Student Response Systems (clickers) into teaching * Implementation of e-Portfolio systems for assessment * Discipline-specific technologies 6. K-16 Pipeline: Plugging the Leaks Chancellor Zimpher has talked about the importance of SUNY in the context of the New York State birth through career educational environment. The Chancellor recognizes that SUNY’s success is dependent both upon the early childhood and K-12 systems that bring students to our campuses and upon our ability to move students through Associate Degrees, to Bachelor Degrees and on to Graduate Degrees. Referring to the continuum of education as a pipeline, she has challenged us to help prevent the leaks that keep students from achieving their highest possible levels of success. To foster new partnerships in this area, FACT has asked members of the New York State Association for Computers and Technologies in Education (NYSCATE) to present at this year’s CIT conference. NYSCATE is a non-profit, professional organization representing more than 2,000 technology using educators and administrators in New York State. A majority of the NYSCATE members work in the K-12 sector. NYSCATE is involved in helping define statewide policy regarding the use of technologies in education. Presentations will describe how technology enables increased partnerships and collaborations within the total educational system in New York. Examples of presentations may include: * The role of technology in a Community and Comprehensive College partnership to offer a Bachelor degree program * A local college hosting an Open Source Course Management System for a local high school * Campuses partnering to share the development and delivery of online courses business courses for Professional Science Masters programs * Planned uses of technology in the NYS Smart Scholars Early College High School (ECHS) Program Developed by the SUNY FACT Advisory Council – July 2009 2