Association for Learning Technology
Fortnightly news digest 207, issued 13 August 2010

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Table of Contents
1. ALT news
2. ALT events
3. News
4. Calls for papers/speakers
5. Other events – some with close deadlines
6. Most recent issue of the ALT Online Newsletter – links to articles 7. 
Current issue (18:2) of the ALT Journal – Research in Learning Technology


1. ALT news

1.1 We welcome Intel and Pearson as sponsoring members of ALT, and the 
University of Chester, London Knowledge Lab at the Institute of 
Education, and the University of Warwick as new organisational members.

1.2 Vacancies on ALT Committees. We have vacancies on three of our four 
operational committees (Further Education, Membership Services, 
Publications), for an initial three year term, with effect from autumn 
2010. The closing date for expressions of interest is 3 September 2010. 
There are links to the expression of interest forms at 
http://www.alt.ac.uk/.

1.3 Subscribing to ALT-ANNOUNCE - Staff of organisational and sponsoring 
members, alongside individual members of ALT, are entitled to subscribe 
to ALT-ANNOUNCE, the Jiscmail list we use to distribute this fortnightly 
Digest, the quarterly ALT News, and infrequent brief announcements about 
ALT. Please encourage relevant colleagues to subscribe from the simple 
form at http://www.alt.ac.uk/lists.html. In the case of staff of 
organisational and sponsoring members, provided the staff member joining 
has an email address consistent with the domain name of an 
organisational or sponsoring member of ALT, we will approve the 
subscription, which will, essentially, result in the subscriber becoming 
an Associate Member of ALT, which is free for employees of ALT 
organisational and sponsoring members under the recently announced 
changes to our membership structure. Later this year we will be 
migrating this process to the new ALT web site and any subscribers whom 
we have treated in this way will be able to opt out.

1.4 Direct Debit payments to be phased out. We are no longer accepting 
new Direct Debit mandates from new members or those renewing their 
membership. Members who have existing Direct Debit mandates set up will 
be able to continue these until the transition to the new online 
membership system later this year. Direct Debit mandates have become a 
less frequently used payment option generally and are not time-effective 
for ALT to process. Members will continue to be able to pay their 
membership fees in a variety of ways, including cheque, credit card, and 
purchase order. Information on the ALT website is being amended to 
reflect this change. If you have any questions about these changes, 
please contact us on 01865 484125.


2. ALT events

2.1 ALT/eLN lunchtime webinars – dates for your diary, with further 
details to follow:
14 October 2010 - Shooting Video for eLearning;
6 December 2010 - Learning in 2020.
There is further information about all of our events at 
http://www.alt.ac.uk/events.php

2.2 ALT-C 2010: “Into something rich and strange” – making sense of the 
sea-change. Nottingham, UK, 7-9 September 2010.
*Slightly extended booking deadline*: Thursday, 19 August.
There is a comprehensive overview of the ALT-C 2010 programme at 
http://www.alt.ac.uk/altc2010/timetable.html, and we have published full 
details (with timings) of:
* four plenary sessions and eight invited speaker sessions, at 
http://www.alt.ac.uk/altc2010/keynotes.html;
* eight sponsor sessions at 
http://www.alt.ac.uk/altc2010/sponsored_presentations.html.

For those of you scan-reading this, rather than browsing the links above 
here is a summary.
*Plenary speakers*
* Saul Tendler, the University of Nottingham's Pro-Vice-Chancellor for 
Teaching and Learning
* Barbara Wasson, Professor of Pedagogical Information Science at the 
Department of Information Science and Media Studies, University of 
Bergen, Norway
* Sugata Mitra, Professor of Educational Technology at Newcastle University
* Donald Clark, Board Member of Ufi, and former CEO of Epic Group plc

*Invited speakers*
1. Hans-Peter Baumeister, Co-Director of the European School of 
Business's Research Institute at Reutlingen University, Germany
2. Heather Fry, Director of Education and Participation, HEFCE
3. Sudhir Giri, Head of Google Learning Labs
4. Martin Hall, Vice-Chancellor, University of Salford
5. Frank McLoughlin, Principal, City and Islington College
6. Aaron Porter, President, National Union of Students
7. Josie Taylor, Director, Institute of Educational Technology, The Open 
University
8. David White, Senior Manager: Development, Technology-Assisted 
Lifelong Learning, University of Oxford

*Sponsored presentations*
1. Becta
2. Blackboard Collaborate (the arm of Blackboard that now includes Wimba 
and Elluminate)
3. Blackboard Learn
4. Desire2Learn
5. Intel
6. JISC
7. Talis Education
8. The Higher Education Academy
9  Pearson


3. News

3.1 For the latest HEFCE news headlines see http://www.hefce.ac.uk/news

3.2 For the latest JISC news headlines see http://jisc.ac.uk/news.asp

3.3 The Digital Economy Act 2010 - implications for UK colleges and 
universities, from JISC Legal information, see 
http://www.jisclegal.ac.uk/Portals/12/Documents/PDFs/DEA%20Guidance.pdf


4.Calls for papers/speakers

4.1 Calls for papers
IADIS International Conference on International Higher Education 2010
29 - 1 November/December 2010, Perth, Australia
http://www.ihe-conf.org/
Submission deadline: 6 September 2010


5. Other events

5.1 HEA Special Interest Group Supporting Sustainable e-Learning Forum 
(SSeLF)seminar ‘Changing organisational practices with Developmental 
Work Research’. 17 September 2010, Institute of Education, London.
See http://uk-sself.ning.com/events/challenge-3-learning-to-change
To register for the event visit
http://tinyurl.com/39dpsln

5.2 Innovation in Education: Transforming Learning in the 21st Century. 
17 November 2010, London.
(Early Bird Offer - 10% off for all public/third sector organisations, 
save up to £50 offer ends 27 August 2010). 
http://insidegovernment.msgfocus.com/c/1FnQcwNtbdbe71sP5

5.3 2011 International Conference on Data Engineering and Internet 
Technology (DEIT 2011) 15-17 March 2011, Bali, Indonesia
http://www.irast.org/conferences/DEIT/2011

6. Latest issue of ALT News Online – links to individual articles:

Article – “In my opinion” The HTML5 and Flash Debate by Barry Sampson 
http://newsletter.alt.ac.uk/2flsxrri7hv19z0mhre8b8

Article – “IT in university level mathematics teaching and learning: a 
mathematician's point of view” by Manchester Univerisity’s Professor 
Alexandre Borovik
http://newsletter.alt.ac.uk/4edkkzb138s19z0mhre8b8

Article – “Echo360 Personal Capture” by Mimi Weiss Johnson and Justin Gagen
http://newsletter.alt.ac.uk/q0078azxlyv19z0mhre8b8

Article – “Learning Landscapes in Higher Education” by Les Watson
http://newsletter.alt.ac.uk/wxjt53kw6dr19z0mhre8b8

Article – “W3C's Widget standards set to shake up the world of mobile 
applications – and bring more features to VLEs” by Scott Wilson 
http://newsletter.alt.ac.uk/w5a1dao0xsc19z0mhre8b8

Article – “Gaining business intelligence from user activity data”
A Report from the JISC Workshop, London, 14 July 2010 by David Kay
http://newsletter.alt.ac.uk/1cc17h3tcpb19z0mhre8b8

Article – “E-Learning in the Women's Institutes” by Lynne Stubbings
http://newsletter.alt.ac.uk/12eamb7nzxu19z0mhre8b8

Article – “A week in the life of Philip Wane, Nottingham Trent 
University” by Philip Wane 
http://newsletter.alt.ac.uk/1e6w6efzqnq19z0mhre8b8


7. Latest issue of ALT-J (to be ‘Research in Learning Technology’ from 
January 2011) - article links. The current issue Volume 18 Issue 2, can 
be accessed online from the links below. If your organisation is a 
member of ALT, or if it has an online subscription to the Journal, *and* 
if its network is appropriately configured, then you should be able to 
click straight through to the individual articles. Note that all 
organisational and sponsoring members of ALT are entitled to online 
access to ALT-J for all their employees when logged into the network. 
*NB* If you cannot access the Journal online, this is something we may 
be able to help you fix.

Table of contents http://tinyurl.com/2vlfm9u

Editorial – “A snapshot of research in learning technology” by Rhona Sharpe
DOI: 10.1080/09687769.2010.499207
http://tinyurl.com/2wfwruo

Article – “Sustainability factors for e-learning initiatives” by Cathy Gunn
DOI: 10.1080/09687769.2010.492848
http://tinyurl.com/2ua6gx2

Article – “The role of podcasting in effective curriculum renewal” by 
Ming Nie, Alejandro Armellini, Sue Harrington, Kelly Barklamb and Ray 
Randall
DOI: 10.1080/09687769.2010.492849
http://tinyurl.com/3y8k8py

Article – “Integrating technology with literacy: using teacher-guided 
collaborative online learning to encourage critical thinking” by Alyson 
Simpson
DOI: 10.1080/09687769.2010.492846
http://tinyurl.com/2vuo4bs

Article – “Exploring mobile learning success factors” by Thomas D. Cochrane
DOI: 10.1080/09687769.2010.494718
http://tinyurl.com/2vbnqen

Article – “Students and mobile devices” by John Traxler
DOI: 10.1080/09687769.2010.492847
http://tinyurl.com/36lenvx

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The digest returns on 27 August 2010. All news, jobs, events, etc, to 
[log in to unmask] by Tuesday 24 August. Please see below for important 
submission formatting details. This issue was compiled by Melanie Fox 
and very lightly edited by Seb Schmoller.

Chief Executive
Seb Schmoller

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Disclaimer: Whilst every care is taken to provide accurate information 
in compiling this digest, ALT cannot vouch for the accuracy of 
information provided on other web sites to which the digest links, and 
opinions expressed on those sites should not be construed to be those of 
ALT.

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