Description

The conference aims to review the impacts that digital, social and mobile media and networks are having on learning environments in higher education. Participants will be from all academic disciplines across the arts, sciences, and professions.

 

In Being a University (2011, p143), Ronald Barnett talks about the emerging university of the future as an ecological university, where the ecological university is not only concerned with the natural environment but is concerned about “…a much wider ambit, embracing the personal, social, cultural, institutional and technological environments and knowledge of those environments; in short, the world in its fullest senses.” The ecological university thus endeavors to cultivate those interconnections through meaningful and diverse ways of learning and inquiry.

A learning-scape, therefore, may be defined as a conceptual construct that shapes our perceptions of our learning environments. A learning-scape may be viewed as a mosaic of learning environments (i.e., a holistic learning ecosystem) interconnected and interacting at all levels. Personal, cultural, institutional and technological environments can have an enormous impact on learning-scapes because all these environments are intertwined and symbiotic to various degrees. Thus, we need to remind ourselves that curiosity, creativity, and meaningful dialogue and interactions are vitally important because they form the basis for and the context of our humanity and human learning. We need to remind ourselves that appropriate design of learning-scapes matters.

What elements make for effective learning-scapes? For instance, how do we use technology to transform learning without becoming overpowered by the technology? Just as a mountain can seem to overshadow the smaller yet important places around it, technology can sometimes make us feel overwhelmed by its power and enormity. This conference seeks to advance the notion of higher education as an interconnected learning ecosystem and it aims to explore how all the diverse elements of this ecosystem can contribute in creating more dynamic and flourishing learning-scapes.

More specifically, the conference aims to review the impacts that digital, social and mobile media and networks are having on learning environments in higher education. Reports on new forms and approaches to teaching and learning are specifically solicited and presentations on developments and research in higher education generally are welcome.

Participants will be from the gamut of academic disciplines across the arts, sciences, and professions, as well as from other administrative and staff functions delivering and supporting new technologies and approaches to learning. As with every HETL conference, we support participation from around the world.

 

Proposals related to higher education teaching and learning in-general are also invited, even if they are not directly related to the conference theme. Additional conference tracks may be developed based on submissions. As with any academic abstract, your 250 word abstract should clearly and concisely describe the purpose of your presentation, the method(s) used, the results/findings, and the conclusion/implications. All submitted proposals will be peer reviewed by a screening committee to ensure academic quality and appropriateness of the proposal topic. Selected proposals will appear in the conference proceedings (book of abstracts). See the program and proceedings of the 2013 International HETL Conference to get an idea of the typical HETL conference style and format.