EDUCAUSE 2006 – EDUCAUSE Learning Inititiative

Diana Oblinger presented, and began by introducing the staff and scholars of ELI.

Diana then proceeded to talk about what ELI has done over the last year.  ELI is 18 months, having restructured from the NLII.  Their mission is “Advancing learning through IT innovation”.

There are three major areas for ELI programming:

  • Learners – Our students may be different, but if we don’t understand them it’s hard to have an impact.
  • Learning Principles & Practices – Marrying theory and practice.
  • Learning Technologies – Technologies only matter when they are put into practice to serve people.

Diana then reviewed the benefits of membership, before going over group accomplishments.  Membership has increased by 90%, focus sessions have increased by 66%, annual meetings have increased by 23%, plus tens of thousands of hits to ELI publications.

They are no longer focused on research institutions.

Educating the Net Generation has been a successfully received book, with 3 chapters by students.  The book was one of their first efforts towards the Learner area.

Learning Spaces explores how space can encourage learning, with over 30 case studies.

7 Things You Should Know… has been one of the most successful publications.  Facebook was profiled most recently, and YouTube is being produced now.  These guides can generate policy discussions on campus.

Innovations & Implementations is a series of case studies on different kinds of technologies and processes.

White Papers on topics like Net Savvy Students, Assessment, and E-Portfolios in Higher Education.

Podcasts interview experts using audio instead of text.

ELI Web Seminars and Web Symposiums bring people together from different campuses to attend virtual sessions or conferences.

ELI has been working with consultants to make their events like the annual meeting better learning events.  We will experience informal learning spaces, and “learning circles”.

Tools include surveys and guidelines institutions to help frame conversations about our students and our learning spaces.

I was happy to learn that ELI’s monthly Web Seminars are posted on the ELI Events page through October of 2007.  I had previously only found the upcoming seminar on a different events page, but now I know what’s coming months ahead of time, which will help as we solicit participants across campus to attend these events.

Technorati Tags: ,

This entry was posted in General. Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply