The eLearning Consortium of Colorado conference is virtual on Wednesday April 3 and Thursday April 4, 2024. On Friday April 5, we're doing a game day. We'll be hybrid both face-to-face at FRCC Boulder County Campus in Longmont and virtual. We want to focus on discussions and explorations with our community of learning/instructional designers, educational technologists, online learning people and really any and all educators.
Possible Topics
We’re open to all topics, so please share what you are working on, pondering or what you’d like to explore with our community. Here are some ideas:
- All things online learning, technology and education
- AI and all things henceforth (we know you have ideas)
- Accessibility, Accessibility Culture, Tools, Workflow and/or Colorado House Bill 21-1110 or other state discussions
- Neurodiversity and/or Design Justice
- Language and Culture (Designing in a Language other than English, Translanguaging, Bilingualism, Linguistic Imperialism)
- Games, Simulations, Virtual Worlds, Immersive and Pervasive Experiences
- Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (JEDI) in Teaching, Technology and Online Learning to include the Face-to-Face debate
Possible Session Formats
We’re going with a variety of formats, especially ones that will facilitate discussions and explorations. All formats allow for one presenter or for a collaborative panel of presenters.
Discussions (50 minutes)
We really want this to be the cornerstone of our conference. This format is all about engaging the audience and having a high level of audience interaction. The presenter’s role is to facilitate open and honest conversations about common challenges, overcoming barriers, or opportunities for future collaborations.
Discord Event (50 minutes)
Discord, a VOIP, instant messaging and digital distribution platform created in 2015 now has over 140 active monthly users. This platform has been used for live streaming, discussions, playing games and even creating games inside Discord. Discord sessions will feature facilitators bringing in conference participants for one of these uses.
Flipped Session (50 or 85 minutes)
Facilitator will record a short introduction and/or have a reading available ahead of time for the participants. Facilitator will lead participants through an active learning scenario. Time will be scheduled at the end for a de-briefing.
Gamestorming (50 or 85 minutes)
These sessions take the traditional idea of a conference presentation by storm! Facilitators will identify an industry topic as the focus, then select an appropriate gamestorming activity to lead participants through during an innovative and collaborative virtual gathering. Gamestorming is a set of co-creation brainstorming activities that are great for examining things deeply and/or exploring new ideas. The term ‘gamestorming’ was coined by Dave Gray, Sunni Brown and James Macanufo in 2010. Learn more about gamestorming strategies.
Hands-On (60 minutes)
Hands-on sessions focus on a particular tool or platform and use of that tool (play along) as the focus of the session. This format focuses on the presenter allowing the audience to use the tool or platform to create content.
Immersive Environment Tour and Let’s Play (50 or 85 minutes)
Immersive environment tours provide participants with either an opportunity to play, go in-world or observe a facilitated tour using any livestream technology. Participants not in-world will engage with the presenter using the chat or VOIPfeature of the livestream technology. Presenters will need to provide information on how to access the immersive environment (free/fee based, download requirements, technology specifications) and what livestream platform the audience will need to use to access the communication channel the presenter has selected as well as a link to join the tour.
Livestream (50 or 85 minutes)
Livestream sessions include Zoom, YouTube, Facebook, Twitch or Periscope among others. These platforms allow presenters to livestream anything happening on the presenter’s screen as well as share their webcam. Sessions livestreamed could be from a F2F classroom or a mobile walking tour of a new technology lab, study space, or other spaces.
Presentations and Panels (50 minutes)
These are the concurrent sessions typically seen at most conferences. The presenters would provide slides, handouts, etc. for participants during the session. Please indicate in your submission if you want to use a platform other than Zoom.
Reddit AMA (variable time)
Reddit, the self-proclaimed (and ubiquitous) “front page of the internet” frequently hosts celebrities and other personalities to run an “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) thread where participants can ask the host anything and generally get an answer. Threads generally start with “I Am A [bona fides], [optional host name], ask me anything!” Hosts come prepared to answer a wide swath of questions in a public forum with relative anonymity.
This format provides presenters with a synchronous/ asynchronous text engagement with participants answering questions about the presenter’s area(s) of expertise or unique experience(s). Most of our presenters have an “IAmA” of a group of instructional designers and technologists here to talk about trends and issues in learning design and technology, effective course design, online learning, good (and bad) learning technology, and how our efforts aim to transform learning into meaningful experiences for students. So there are lots of potential topics for presenters and attendees to delve into during these sessions.
Research-in-Action (50 or 85 minutes)
Have an idea for a pilot study or interested in helping study a virtual conference phenomena. This format provides the presenter and the audience with a platform to conduct a quick time boxing of research/ inquiry opportunities for virtual conferences. Research-in-action fosters a collaborative effort to identify questions and to engage fellow conference goers for feedback. The end result would be an outline of a research problem and initial data collection. Facilitator will be contacting presenters regarding IRB approval ahead of the conference.
Scholarly Discussion (50 minutes)
Presenters will choose a construct, theory, model or framework like … cognitive load theory or multimedia theory or theory of their choice and facilitate an academic discussion group on it.
Scholarly Read (50 minutes)
Presenters will choose a journal article and lead the group through a discussion of it. Choose something you and your colleagues are discussing. As an example, we’d love to have someone facilitate a discussion on Learning at Double Speed.
Slow Tweetchat (24 hours)
A slow tweetchat is a 24 hour chat over twitter (X) where the presenter creates 3 – 4 questions on a topic which are released and participants can answer the questions and respond to other participants using a specific hashtag. See an example of a slow twitter chat.
Tweetchat (60 minutes)
These usually take place over a one hour period of time where the presenter's created questions are released on twitter and people answer using a specific hashtag.
Watch Party / Viewing Event (variable time)
Were you a fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000? Have you ever wanted to watch the IT Crowd with a bunch of online educators? We’d love for presenters to hold a watch party as either an exploration of a concept or as a social event.