Student Blog: Dr. Oblinger's Opening Remarks

I have relocated to my proper table and am now good to go.  Dr. Oblinger is strolling the room, to start the talk on her wireless microphone. 

"Are you ready to see some new immersive learning environments?", she asks.  The sessions promise to provide a 'smorgasboard' of haptic devices, virtual reality, social networks, many varied technologies.

How does this apply to your own institution?  We intend for these sessions to offer ideas that can transfer back to your school.

Is this doable?  We hope to show some examples of things that can actually get started now.

Covergence: as we have seen in communications, burgeoning technologies have a tendency to start from different points of view but converge on a shared vision.  We hope to show some inklings of that happening in ELI as well.

Schedule: quick paced.  One general session and then we break out into "project parlors".  In those, we have just 15 minutes of exposure - not enough, but hopefully give you time for reflection and planning tomorrow to get more in depth views.

Index cards on each table: put questions, comments on these to help organizers get a feel for how we are tracking to expectations.  Where we are on focus and where we are drifting away.

How does this fit with EDUCAUSE?  EDUCAUSE is the professional organization, whose mission is  advancing learning through technological innovation. 

Introduction of first speaker: Rick Van Eck, from the U North Dakota.  Expertise is learning in games and intelligent tutoring systems.