Looking at Learning Anew: Capitalizing on the Digital Environment

Every day members of the academy are challenged to think in new ways about teaching and learning. We hear reports about what students do not know and have not learned. We have heightened awareness about the need to democratize learning and make it more accessible to all kinds of people who find themselves in all kinds of life circumstances. We know now that significant learning results from experiences that are high-energy and in which students are engaged. We know that significant learning is evidenced by its enhancement of the student’s life, its empowerment of the student to contribute to the world around her, and its preparation of the student for competence in one or more professional fields.

The question for us as higher education faculty is: How do we go about providing significant learning experiences for our students? Our impressive array of speakers will lead us through an exploration of diverse strategies. We will come to better understand significant learning and the emerging neomillennial learner who expects us to provide such learning. We will become more familiar with immersive learning experiences such as CAVES (Cave Automatic Virtual Environments) or MUVES (Multiuse Virtual Environments). We will begin to form opinions about the value of student learners actually shaping their experiences rather than just observing them, about the transferability of knowledge and ways to facilitate it, and about new types of learning communities for students and teachers. In short, we will be energized and inspired to continue our quest for quality instruction for all students anytime, anywhere.

THE Forum, Limited Edition
The post-Katrina budget reductions have decimated the travel funds of most institutions of higher learning in Louisiana. The question arose: How can we hold our conference? What Louisiana faculty members will be able to attend? We decided to disperse the conference to six “cluster sites” around the state and to link all of the sites together via the Access Grid. That will permit all faculty participants to be present with each other throughout the one-day conference. It is the next best thing to being gathered together in a single location (constant real-time presence). The combination of the Access Grid format and the one-day meeting will enable faculty to drive to the cluster site nearest them, thereby eliminating the need for hotel accommodations and significant travel costs.

Please note that the conference registration fee has been significantly reduced to permit faculty to attend without hardship. Registration is still required and will be handled as in the past, to permit planning for lunch and other conference amenities. In order to support faculty in this way, we have cut conference expenses and sought additional funding/sponsorships to compensate for the loss of one-half of our normal conference revenue. The quality of the conference will still be stellar. We are hosting the five plenary speakers originally slated for 2006. We are certain that you will find them to be dynamic, stimulating and on the same frontier of higher education as previous plenary speakers.

Throughout this announcement you will find helpful information to orient you to the ‘06 THE Forum Limited Edition. The richness of the program makes the nominal registration fee the bargain of the century! The map of Louisiana shows the locations of the cluster sites as well as directions (websites) for each site. Remember that registration is required and please help our planning by registering early.

This is the first time that the Access Grid has been used to support an academic conference as well as its first significant use in support of teaching and learning. We are very pleased to be able to demonstrate such an important expansion of this great technological unifier. Please join us in Louisiana as our popular conference rises from the debris of Katrina and Rita to serve as a beacon of hope and promise of the future for higher education in this part of the country. See you there!
 

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