Session Information
ERG SES G 06, ICT and Education
Paper Session
Contribution
Although the submission of papers and participation in academic conferences may be seen as a routine or even a mandatory task, especially when envisioning an academic career, there is little research in the area (de Vries & Pieters, 2007; Jacobs & McFarlane, 2005).
Conferences can be an opportunity to learn, through sharing and knowledge construction. Their designed can stimulate the development of communities of practice (Wenger, 1998) and digital habits within communities and networks (Wenger, White, & Smith, 2009) and constitute the ideal vehicle to formal and informal learning and knowledge management (Wenger, McDermott, & Snyder, 2002). Conferences facilitate and enhance the creation of networks, they enable opportunities for informal learning and offer moments of socialization (Siemens, Tittenberger, & Anderson, 2008). Authors like Weller (2011) summarize the functions of a conference as follow: knowledge sharing, validation, networking, recognition and socializing. As L. Anderson & T. Anderson (2010, p. xi) remark
"(…) a professional conference usually consists of formal and informal scheduled talks and presentations by celebrity keynotes. These are usually followed by smaller sessions where members of the organisation are invited to share insights, developments, concerns, and issues in panel of individual presentations."
In this presentation we discuss a case study about the conference myMPeL, an annual conference organized and held from and for the learning community of an online master’s program.
The ConferencemyMPeL has been held since 2010 as part of the Master Course in Elearning Pedagogy (MPeL), at Universidade Aberta (UAb, the Open University in Portugal). The course has adopted the pedagogical model (Modelo Pedagógico Virtual®) of the UAb (Pereira, Mendes, Morgado, Amante, & Bidarra, 2007), and is a response to a growing need of specialization for those working in the field of distance education and elearning. It seeks to explore emerging models and to develop strategies for the integration of ICT in online education. The MPeL takes place fully online and the Conference myMPeL is the only moment from the entire program held face-to-face (with a streamed online component). It intends to be a moment of socialization and of sharing of developed work by the MPeL's students with the course community and a wider community of professionals interested in online distance education and in the elearning field. According to Kelly, Tonkin and Shabajee (2005), nowadays it is possible to bring the world to a conference auditorium and, at the same time, expand a conference to the world. This is the characteristic of an amplified event (Kelly, 2011). The Conference myMPeL is a conference 2.0, organized and performed with Web 2.0 tools, which applies emerging pedagogies (Siemens & Tittenberger, 2009).
This article presents the outcomes of a study with the following main question: how can the organization format and management of an academic conference which uses Web 2.0 tools contribute to the success of a conference (defined as the achievement of the initial objectives of the organizers and the participants’ expectations regarding learning)?
The main objectives of this study were to understand how the use of Web 2.0 tools facilitate and enhance learning in an academic conference, and to foster improvements in the organization of the Conference myMPeL.
The relevance of this study lays on a contribution to the success of future editions of the Conference myMPeL, as well as to academic and scientific conferences supported by ICT (Information and Communication Technologies), namely Web 2.0 services.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Anderson, L., & Anderson, T. (2010). Online Conferences: Professional Development for a Networked Era. Charlotte, NC, USA: Information Age Publishing. Cohen, L., Manion, L., & Morrison, K. (2005). Research methods in education. Education (5th ed.). London: RoutlegeFalmer. De Vries, B., & Pieters, J. (2007). Knowledge sharing at conferences. Educational Research and Evaluation, 13(3), 237–247. doi:10.1080/13803610701626168 Downes, S. (2011). How to Get the Most out of a Conference. Retrieved from http://halfanhour.blogspot.pt/2011/11/how-to-get-most-out-of-conference.html Ebner, M., & Reinhardt, W. (2009). Social networking in scientific conferences–Twitter as tool for strengthen a scientific community. In Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Science (Vol. 2, pp. 1–8). Retrieved from http://www.mendeley.com/research/social-networking-scientic-conferences-twitter-tool-strengthen-scientific-communitypdf/ Figueiredo, A. D. (2009). Estratégias e Modelos para a Educação Online. In G. L. Miranda (Ed.), Ensino Online e Aprendizagem Multimédia. Lisboa: Relógio d’Água Editores. Jacobs, N., & McFarlane, A. (2005). Conferences as learning communities: some early lessons in using `back-channel’ technologies at an academic conference - distributed intelligence or divided attention? Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 21(5), 317–329. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2729.2005.00142.x Kelly, B. (2011). Providing an Amplified Event Service. Retrieved from https://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/2011/08/22/providing-an-amplified-event-service/ Kelly, B., Tonkin, E., & Shabajee, P. (2005). Using networked technologies to support conferences. In EUNIS 2005 Conference Proceedings. Mannchester: University of Manchester. Retrieved from http://opus.bath.ac.uk/id/eprint/439 Pereira, A., Mendes, A., Morgado, L., Amante, L., & Bidarra, J. (2007). O Modelo Pedagógico Virtual da Universidade Aberta: Para uma Universidade do Futuro. Universidade Aberta. Retrieved from https://repositorioaberto.uab.pt/bitstream/10400.2/1295/1/Modelo%20Pedagogico%20Virtual.pdf Siemens, G., & Tittenberger, P. (2009). Handbook of Emerging Technologies for Learning (p. 61). Manitoba, Canada: University of Manitoba. Retrieved from http://elearnspace.org/Articles/HETL.pdf Siemens, G., Tittenberger, P., & Anderson, T. (2008). Conference Connections: Rewiring the Circuit. Educause Review, 43(2), 14–28. Retrieved from http://connect.educause.edu/Library/EDUCAUSE+Review/ConferenceConnectionsRewi/46312 Weller, M. (2011). The Digital Scholar: How Technology Is Transforming Scholarly Practice. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity. New York: Cambridge University Press. Wenger, E., McDermott, R., & Snyder, W. M. (2002). Cultivating communities of practice: a guide to managing knowledge. Boston, USA: Harvard Business School Press. Wenger, E., White, N., & Smith, J. D. (2009). Digital Habitats; Stewarding Technology for Communities. Computer Networks. Portland, OR: CPsquare.
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