MicroSCoPE: A Close Look at What's Happening in the SCoPE Community
April, 2009
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In This Issue
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1. Live Session TODAY: Marginalia Web Annotation
2. SCoPE Seminar: Evaluation Practices for Informal/Self-Paced Adult Learning
3. Live Session: First Nations Pedagogy Online
4. Mark Your Calendars
5. Activity Recap
6. Shaping Our Future Conference
7. Special Interest Groups
8. PeriSCoPE
9. About SCoPE
10. About MicroSCoPE
1. Live Session TODAY: Marginalia Web Annotation
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April 8, 2009, 10:00 a.m. PDT, 17:00 GMT
Facilitators: Cindy Xin, Andrew Feenberg, Geoffrey Glass
Elluminate: http://tinyurl.com/9m668l
Join the recipients of the 2008 BC Innovation Awards in Educational Technology for a presentation and open discussion about their work with Marginalia, an open source web annotation system that allows users of web applications to highlight text and write margin notes.
2. SCoPE Seminar: Evaluation Practices for Informal/Self-Paced Adult Learning
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April 13 - May 1, 2009
Facilitators: Caren Levine and William Owen
Informal learning is a key part of our personal development. It is also becoming a larger part of our working lives. But in an era of increasing accountability, we begin to question the role of evaluation for informal / self-paced adult learning. What are existing rationales for evaluation of informal / self-paced adult learning (for the learner and the provider/developer)? What accountability do we have to learners / providers/ funders? What's different about evaluating informal learning vis a vis formal learning? What are emerging practices for evaluation informal / self-paced adult learning? What are some challenges in the field? What are the opportunities in the field?
3. Live Session: First Nations Pedagogy Online
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April 15, 2009, 11:00 a.m. PDT, 18:00 GMT
Facilitator: June Kaminski
Elluminate: http://tinyurl.com/9m668l
In March 2008 a SCoPE seminar marked the launch of the First Nations Pedagogy Online project. Join us one year later for a tour of the website, highlighting the design elements and resources that emerged through the discussions that began during the SCoPE launch.
4. Mark Your Calendars
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* SCoPE Seminar: Humanizing the Online Experience
May 4 - 19, 2009
Facilitator: Jesai Jayhmes
How do you come across in the online classroom? What are some strategies for making real-time sessions engaging and interactive? Jesai combines his background in acting, teaching, voice coaching, and video production to help us understand the changes we need to make to be effective online facilitators. This 3 week seminar will be combined with weekly live sessions.
5. Activity Recap
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SCoPE Seminar: Developing a National Framework of Teaching Expectations in Higher Education
March 2-22, 2009
Facilitators: Gary Hunt and Vivian Neal
Has the time come for a made-in-Canada accreditation program for post-secondary teaching? During this seminar we heard clear support for the idea that a national system could elevate the value of training and certification and bring more professional recognition to our practice. Creating a "flexible framework" emerged as an important approach -- one that could be adapted to the context of institutions, programmes, and faculty needs. The next steps involve further (and broad) consultation. Further details about progress and an upcoming survey will be shared in the seminar.
6. Shaping Our Future Conference
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The SOF2008 online conference was held last year in May. Have you seen the synopsis of this conference? (PDF 1.4 MB). Do you have suggestions for next steps for e-learning research in Canada? Special thanks again to Joanne Nielsen for her work on summarizing the conference discussions and resources.
7. New Special Interest Groups
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* Marginalia
This is an open space for experimenting with, learning about, and providing feedback on, Marginalia.
* Online Community Enthusiasts
This isn't a new SIG, but is being revived for the Vancouver Gathering of Community Enthusiasts. If you plan to be in Vancouver May 1st you should consider signing up!
* Ubah Boleh
This private SIG is for participants in the Schumacher College Roots of Learning: Strategies for creative social change programme for educators, community workers, and individuals who are on a learning path that combines their personal lives with a local and global vision of education. Ubah Boleh means "change we can" in Malasian.
At SCoPE we welcome requests for education-related Special Interest Groups.
8. PeriSCoPE
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* The 5-week online Connected Futures workshop begins April 20th. This workshop is for community managers, designers and conveners to explore social strategies and tools to support them.
* Volume 2, Issue 3 of Transformative Dialogues is available. The theme is the impact of learning in and to the workplace.
* The May CIDER Session is Re-Thinking E-Learning Research with Norm Friessen. Find out more about Norm's new book and download selected chapters.
* The Canadian e-Learning Conference takes place at University of British Columbia, Vancouver, June 17-19, 2009.
* This month's Active Learning Carnival asks "How are you going to keep them in the industrial age, after they've been connected?
* SCoPE was presented at the 2009 Canada Moodle Moot conference in Edmonton. The slides are available on slideshare.
* The Open Education Conference will be held at University of British Columbia, Vancouver, August 12-14, 2009.
* Join the SCoPE group at Linkedin to connect with others who are interested in employment in education or in connecting professionally on projects, follow SCoPE on Twitter and check out the SCoPE Facebook group and member networking as a way to keep in the loop.
* Check what SCoPE members are blogging about and subscribe to our SCoPE Bloggers feed. Do you have a blog? Add it to our SCoPE member blogs database.
* Have you added your name and location to our Frappr Map?
* Leave a message on the SCoPE Voicethread
9. About SCoPE
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SCoPE brings together individuals who share an interest in education research and practice, and offers opportunities for dialogue across disciplines, geographical borders, professions, levels of expertise, and education sectors. Membership is free and open to everyone.
SCoPE forms collaborating partnerships with many organizations to implement and promote community activities and products. This is a mutual exchange of support and services.
Self-register at http://scope.bccampus.ca
Past SCoPE seminar discussions are always available for reading and afterthoughts.
10. About MicroSCoPE
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SCoPE members receive MicroSCoPE issues automatically. If you prefer to read MicroSCoPE on the website or via RSS, manage your subscription here:
http://scope.bccampus.ca/mod/forum/view.php?f=5
MicroSCoPE is prepared by Sylvia Currie, Community Coordinator (scurrie@bccampus.ca).
Please spread the word about SCoPE activities. Distribute this newsletter!