FETC Virtual Conference

I attended the Virtual FETC Conference on October 22.  Wow, what an interesting experience!  This is the first time I have ever attended something like a conference virtually.  It was pretty neat, I could go to the auditorium and see/hear speakers when they were speaking, I could go to the booths of the different sponsors and exhibitors, and even into the library for information on certain subjects.  It was quite awesome as I went to the exhibit hall and saw virtual people standing around - kind of like a video game, and even hear the sounds of people in the background that sounded real as if I was actually at a convention. 

I listened to a couple of presenters.  The one I found most interesting was Chris Dede.  He is a professor in Learning Technologies at Harvard's Graduate School of Education.  Chris is on the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Foundation and Psychological Assessment, the US Department of Educations Expert Pannel on Technology and the Steering Committee for the Second International Technology in Education Study.

He gave a very interesting presentation on:  Three Types of Immersive Interfaces:  Implications for Learning and Teaching.  I liked the analogy Chris used for immersion - it is like going to a movie.  You have all your stress, worries, things to do, thoughts, etc.  Then you go in to watch Harry Potter, soon you forget about everything else and you are actually there with Harry.  This is immersion. 

Chris talked about the study of Virtual Reality of Learning, how to take an abstract thing and make it sensory.  Students can conceptualize how the activity really works in a virtual world.  They have a different frame of reference, can see invisible things, and actually get to do it - the activity - to get the benefits.  The whole experience that the students use is kind of like an online video game.  Chris called it situated learning, kind of like a medical internship.

Learning communities were discussed, they teach students how to work in a distributed community, using technology like wikis, blogs, etc., to work with others virtually.  I thought this sounded a little like what we do in our MED INST program as we blog, use blackboard, wiki's, etc. 

Another interesting thing Chris talked about is Augmented Reality.  This comes from gaming.  He thinks that we will use the gaming technology and that the media that will distribute it will probably be the cell phone as nearly every kid, adult, etc., has one or will have one in the future.  This delivery system of the cell phone will be used as an augmented reality.  This means the real world will overlay the digital world.  Chris thinks this will probably be in the next 3-4 years.  He also showed a clip of how this can work - it was amazing and kind of frightening as well.

For more information on this, you can go to HARP, Handheld Augumented Reality Project.  Also, if you want to see his presentation, it should soon be posted at www.gse.arvard.edu/~dedech/

Another interesting presentation was by Ted Hasselbring, a professor at Peabody College of Vanderbilt University.  He spoke on fluency for math.  It was also very interesting.  He had an excellent powerpoint presentation that went with it.  I went to print out a page, and got about 50.

All in all, I really enjoyed the experience of this virtual conference in many different ways.  The presentations were great, the virtual look and feeling was quite interesting, it was easy to attend, the exhibitions were fine, and the price was like none other!  Of course, Orlando, Florida would have been great also!