If you are going to push any boundaries, Barcelona is as good a place as any to do it. Home of Antoni Gaudi, Joan Miró, Picasso (for a significant period in his work), the chef Ferran Adrià, and the fully online Open University of Catalonia (UOC – Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, established as early as 1995), Barcelona has long been in the forefront of innovation and change.
UOC is running an event up to and including October 3 that
will address the challenges that current higher education models face and showcase innovative initiatives and practices that offer creative answers for pressing issues.
Speakers include:
- Terry Anderson (Emeritus Professor at Athabasca University and Director of the Canadian Institute Distance Education Research)
- Lisa Marie Blaschke (Director of the Master of Distance Education and E-Learning at Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, Germany
- Jim Groom (Instructional Technologist, Co-founder Reclaim Hosting)
- Brian Lamb (Director of Open learning and Innovation Thompson Rivers University, Canada)
- Allison Littlejohn (Academic Director for Learning and Teaching and Professor of Learning Technology at The Open University, UK)
- Annette Markham (Professor MSO of Information Studies and Co-Director of the Digital Living Masters Programme at Aarhus University, Denmark)
- Yishay Mor (Director of the Centre for Innovation and Excellence in teaching at the Levinsky College of Education, Israel)
- Rikke Toft Nørgård (Associate Professor in Educational Design and Technology at the Center for Teaching Development and Digital Media, Aarhus University, Denmark)
-
Philipp Schmidt (Director of Learning Innovation at the MIT Media Lab)
- and yours truly
I will be focusing in my contribution on the changing nature of online learning (from mainly fully online, text-based, asynchronous to a blend of face-to-face teaching, video-based synchronous, asynchronous and social media) and the implications for faculty/teacher development and training.
There are still places open for the event. For further information, go to the web site. See ya in Barcelona!
Dr. Tony Bates is the author of eleven books in the field of online learning and distance education. He has provided consulting services specializing in training in the planning and management of online learning and distance education, working with over 40 organizations in 25 countries. Tony is a Research Associate with Contact North | Contact Nord, Ontario’s Distance Education & Training Network.
