Sloan-C International Online Learning Conference, Orlando, Florida - November 2010

I have been to Orlando several times in the past for conferences and I wasn't 100% sure about returning again but the Sloan-C International Online Learning Conference is a special one. This is the conference that Randy and I launched our Blended Learning in Higher Education book in the fall of 2007. It is also the conference where leading researchers in both the K to 12 and higher education sectors present their work. As usual, I took a series of notes, pictures, and even a video to record my visit (this time using my new iPOD 4 - sure wish it had a flash). A couple of conference highlights for me:

Participating in the pre-conference workshop about blended learning: big issues, strategies, and models. It was wonderful to work and learn with a group of passionate educators and researchers on this topic. Hopefully, I can find the link to the PowerPoint slides for this session.

Participating in the The Community of Inquiry Frameworks Ten Years Later panel session - an incredible diversity of approaches and applications

Barbara Means, the lead author for the Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning: A Meta-Analysis and Review of Online Learning Studies review of this study. A couple of key findings from this study:

The meta-analysis found that instruction combining online and face-to-face elements had a larger advantage relative to purely face-to-face instruction.

Taken as a whole, the findings suggest that the observed advantage of blended learning is a product of redesigning the learning experience, not of the medium per se

And, my own session on Teaching Presence: Creating and sustaining communities of inquiry in blended and online environments.