Plenary Sessions

If I Was Going There, I Wouldn't Start From Here

Thursday, January 20, 2000
9:30 a.m. - 10:15 a.m. PLEN03

Tony Bates, Director, Distance Education and Technology, The University of British Columbia

Currently we are integrating technology for teaching within a system established for another era. Consequently, all the time we are modifying what we want to do to fit the current system. This presentation asks the question: if we were designing a research university from scratch, what would it look like, knowing what we now know about the power of technology? It will discuss issues such as: defining markets and mandate; designing curriculum in a learning-object environment; the role of a campus in a distributed learning world; credit banking vs competencies; the post-modernist teaching department; technology and research; and on being a virtual teacher.

MERLOT: A National Collaborative for Engaging Faculty in Web-based Teaching and Learning

Friday, January 21, 2000
8:15 a.m. - 9:15 a.m. PLENO2

Barbara B. Levin, Associate Professor, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, University of North Carolina at Greensboro

James R. Mingle, Director, Distance Learning Policy Lab, Southern Regional Education Board

Charles Schneebeck, Director, Center for Distributed Learning, California State University, Office of the Chancellor

Jessica Somers, Executive Director, Academic Innovation, Advanced Learning Technologies, Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia

Based on a prototype developed by the California State University System, the goal of this national project is the creation of a national gateway to high quality web-based teaching and learning materials. Other sponsors include the University System of Georgia, the University of North Carolina, the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education, and the State Higher Education Executive Officers (SHEEO). Faculty discipline groups will review, rate, and develop study guides for sub-course level materials already available on the web. This process is aimed at fostering learning communities, increasing access to web materials, and creating a mechanism for faculty sharing of high quality work. At the same time it will develop standards for usability and quality that can guide future institutional and state investments in content development. (Attendees who want to learn more about how to join this initiative should plan on attending the discussion session, "Structures for Collaboration and Cooperation across Institutions," from 10:45 am to 12:15 pm.)

Patterns and Practices for Transformation

Thursday, January 20, 2000
10:15 a.m. - 11:00 a.m. PLEN04

David G. Brown, Provost Emeritus, Wake Forest University

In his new book, "Interactive Learning," Dr. Brown brought together 93 authors from 43 of the most wired campuses to describe what, why, how, and with what measured results they are redesigning their courses. Does having a solid infrastructure contribute to individual change, and does the sum of individual changes contribute to transformation of the institution? Dr. Brown will highlight several vignettes, and report on the most prominent "best practices."

The Orbital Shift in Higher Education

Thursday, January 20, 2000
8:30 a.m. - 9:15 a.m. PLEN01

Mary Beth Susman, Press, Rocky Mountain PBS

It is not enough to say that technology is producing a paradigm shift in the way we think about education. It is an orbital shift that has thrown our educational solar system careening around with multiple new centrifugal forces. Closely held traditions are imploding on themselves. Institutions are forming new worlds of mergers and partnerships, for-profit ventures and customer services; Campus systems are mushrooming into state-wide systems, then region-wide systems, and soon planet-wide systems. We're not just "out-of-the-box", we're out of our minds.