This year I’m not able to attend ISTE (my conferences this year were USDLA, AERA, and Evaluation). But, I thought it would be interesting to see what’s on the docket this week. What is everyone talking about in the various online learning and distance education areas?

Here are the results of my poking around. It may be interesting to you too!

First, my old love, videoconferencing:

• Interesting content providers include Rainforest Alive, Global Nomads Group (twice), Philadelphia Museum of Art, Minnesota Historical Society, the Mariner’s Museum, SeaTrek, CILC’s student content project, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Cleveland Museum of Natural History, Columbia Gorge Discover Center and Museum, InterLingo Spanish, Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology, Space Center Houston, Hennepin Theatre Trust, Minnesota Zoo, the Center for Puppetry Arts, Cleveland Institute of Music, Oaida International, and the Bronx Zoo.I see that Cisco stepped up to the plate to ensure a much wider set of VC options with the Tiered Sponsor Activities. I’m curious how that works out this year. Nice to see wider representation of VC opportunities.
• Lessons from the field from St. Philip’s Academy, Paul Hieronymous of NORT2H, Japan-USA collaboration, Pan American Reporters,  higher ed international collaboration, on the road with ESC XI, Internet2, 9/11 reflections, and Berks County IU.
• Only four sessions reference Skype: primary classroom, Skype buddies, career exploration, and… yay! SeaTrek!
• And of course, the pirate playground is back again!

What about Online Learning?

One of the reasons ISTE isn’t on my top list of conferences anymore is because I really need more information on online learning, particularly in the higher ed arena. But, it’s interesting to see what is being presented at ISTE. There are 20 sessions marked by the SIG online learning SIG (SIG OL) covering topics such as:

• web tools (several sessions here)
• future challenges
• professional development (building better teachers) would be nice if that was about building better online teachers!
• Scratch
• Google tools
• My Big Campus, an online social media option for schools
• international online projects
• Johns Hopkins University sharing their online graduate certification in School Administration
• Blended learning: F2F, Google and Moodle  (two sessions on blending Google and Moodle) Those would be interesting given our use of Moodle
• PBL with STEM

Nothing too specific for teaching and learning online. But, a search for “online teaching” brought up one session for an online learning model for adult learners from Johns Hopkins. Anyone want to grab me a handout for this session?! 🙂

What about You?

What are you looking for at ISTE 2012 this year? What are your top sessions? What do you hope to learn? As for me, I’ll be missing all my videoconferencing buddies (and pirates) this year!