18th Annual Sloan-C International Conference on Online Learning
"At a Crossroads: Online Education in a Complex World."
October 10-12, 2012
Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Resort, Lake Buena Vista, FL
Twitter hashtag:  #aln12
Follow us on Twitter @sloanc_aln

Pre-Conference Workshops - a great opportunity for a hands-on learning experience.

This year, we offer pre-conference workshops on Wednesday, October 10.  Take a look at the variety of workshops offered, providing in-depth look, discussions, and tangible ‘take-aways’ on a wide array of topics related to our conference theme and tracks.   Below are two examples of cutting-edge topic workshops that YOU could be participating in.  Half-Day workshops are $125; full day $275.   Lunch is included for all workshop participants.
 

Add a pre-conference workshop to your existing conference registration. 
 

Haven’t signed up for the conference and selected a pre-conference workshop yet?  Register now!

Half Day (AM) - 9:00AM - 12:00PM

STEM Online Education: Strategies for Success

Lead Presenter: Betty Hurley-Dasgupta (SUNY Empire State College, US)
Margaret Czart (University of Illinois at Chicago, US) 
 

Presenters are experienced STEM educators and HP grant recipients representing a diversity of STEM areas and strategies.  Note:  3 hour workshop in AM, followed by discussion session in PM.

The presenters of this workshop include members of the HP Catalyst Initiative, sponsored by Hewlett Packard and ISTE, with John Bourne and Frank Mayadas of Sloan-C serving as the facilitators. Experts not in the Catalyst community will be invited to attend, and may serve as facilitators as well, if appropriate. This network of educators will share innovative approaches to teaching science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) courses online, plus other information resources which promote student success.

Our goal is to uplift online STEM learning and success towards credentialing, worldwide. Toward that end-point, our theme is to understand and disseminate effective practices that will enable STEM online education to grow and prosper. At the outset of the consortium formation, several specific areas of inquiry were focused upon: Serious Games online, Laboratory Learning online, Faculty Development, Cloud Computing for online STEM learning and Student Interaction for online learning. These target areas were chosen specifically because of the great need to make progress in these areas. For this workshop, we plan to add perspectives from at least two non-MultiVersity members.

In this workshop, we will explore current innovative approaches to teaching STEM courses online. Participants will leave the workshop with concrete strategies for engaging STEM learners.

Half Day (PM) - 1:00PM - 4:00PM

OER Tools for Authentic Assessment: Content, Creativity and Collaboration

Lead Presenter: Michele Gill (Online Education at Performance Learning Systems, US)

Skip the auto-graders and test builders--focus on free online tools that will allow your students to show what they know through performance, presentation, and collaboration.

Skip the auto-graders and test builders--focus on free online tools that will allow your students to show what they know through performance, presentation, and collaboration.

Participants will be able to:
• Review various online open source content resources
• Experience and practice with a large variety of online collaboration and creativity tools
• Implement several tool/resources immediately and consider a variety of assessment options.

Read on for information on other workshop offerings.

Meet our Keynote and Plenary Speakers 

For full information on our keynote and plenary sessions, visit http://sloanconsortium.org/conference/2012/aln/program.

Keynote Address
Thursday, October 11
8:50AM

Democratizing Higher Education

 Sebastian Thrun, co-founder of Udacity, Vice President/Fellow at Google, and a Stanford University research professor.

Online higher education has a long history, but seems to be always good for surprises. In 2011, the speaker took his Stanford graduate level class online, and 160,000 students signed up. 23,000 graduated at Stanford level. Underlying this class was a teaching model that emphasizes student engagement, problem solving, and free online access. The speaker recently created Udacity, a new online university, which offers university-level courses free of charge. With half a dozen courses underway, Udacity has enrolled north of 200,000 students. The speaker will discuss details of this approach, the underlying pedagogical ideas, the ramification this work may have for the students in the world.

Plenary Panel
Wednesday, October 10
4:15PM

Evolution or Revolution? What’s Happening with “Traditional” Online Learning?
 

Presenter(s)
 Jeff Young (The Chronicle of Higher Education, US) - Panel Moderator
 

 Jose Cruz (The Education Trust, US)

 Alan Drimmer (University of Phoenix, US)
 

 Jack Wilson (University of Massachusetts, US)

Conversations about online learning are changing. Once on the margins, virtual classrooms are truly mainstream, and all types of institutions are involved. This panel of distinguished leaders in education will look at trends and issues facing online learning – including the cost and value of online delivery, the role of mobile technologies, and what free alternatives such as MOOC’s mean for what has become “traditional online learning.”

Plenary Panel
Friday, October 12
8:50AM

Citizen Science – Authentic Participation in Research

Presenter(s)

 Arfon Smith (Citizen Science-Adler Planetarium, US)

In July 2007 faced with a an overwhelming amount of data to analyze, a group of astronomers launched a website and asked members of the public for their help. Five years later Galaxy Zoo (http://www.galaxyzoo.org) 400,000 members of the public have between them produced more than 150 million galaxy shape classifications leading to more than 35 peer-reviewed publications. Rather than only contribute to the core project, a number of community volunteers began collaborations between themselves and directly with professional academics resulting in a number of additional research publications. In a survey of the original Galaxy Zoo participants, 'a contribution to research' was citied as the primary motivation for volunteering and this led to the creation of Zooniverse, an online platform for research-focussed citizen science.

Today, the Zooniverse has more than 650,000 participants worldwide contributing to more than 10 different citizen science projects. The goal of the Zooniverse is to design web-based citizen science experiences that are both suitable for a broad audience but also facilitate community led discovery as happened in Galaxy Zoo. Public participation as a core part of the research process is an inherently open and authentic way to engage the public. In this presentation I'll spend some time outlining how the Zooniverse has gone about growing the number of research domains soliciting the help of citizen scientists.

Can't travel to Orlando? Join us as a Virtual Attendee...all of the professional benefits and none of the travel. 

No time to get away? Does your university continue to restrict your travel budget? This year, we once again offer an option that will allow participants to make the conference come to them.  The virtual attendee option provides the opportunity for individuals and institutions to attend select sessions of the conference via live webcast services provided by Mediasite.

A selection of over 65 sessions will be broadcast live, including the keynote and plenary sessions, featured sessions, best-in-track sessions, a representation of information sessions from each conference track, plus vendor showcase sessions on the latest technologies and services offered for online learning.  On-demand access of all recorded sessions is also provided to onsite and virtual attendees post-conference for one year.   View the full program of streamed sessions.        

All virtual and onsite attendees of the conference receive access to the on-demand recordings of all 65+ streamed sessions for one year post-conference at no additional cost.

Register now as an individual virtual attendee.

Have colleagues who would also like to attend virtually?

Sloan-C offers two options for you and your colleagues to save money and attend the conference together – virtually!

We are currently offering a ‘Buy 2 registrations, get 1 FREE’ registration promotion for virtual attendees. This offer is only valid on regular price virtual attendee registrations.  To take advantage of this offer, complete this registration form for the Buy 2, get 1 FREE virtual attendee offer (pdf) and fax to 888-898-6209.

Institutions wishing to make the live-streamed sessions available to a larger group may select the Institutional Virtual Attendee Package, which provides access to streamed sessions for up to 100 seats or 30 screens for attendees from one institution for a flat $500 fee.   

Can't decide on onsite or virtual attendance? Watch recordings of our preview webinars to help you decide.

Watch the Recording of the Virtual Attendee Option Preview Webinar (from 8/28)