Seven New Competencies for Working and Learning Online

Nancy White
Founder of Full Circle Associates

Three closely related factors have created an avalanche of implications in how we learn and work together: globalization, the connective potential of the internet, and rapid cycles of change. Communication, work, even time, has taken on new and complex dimensions for individuals and communities. We are at once engaged with many people in the same place and same time, and across the world over time. New online competencies for learning communities are emerging. What are they? How are we going to learn and practice these emergent competencies?

Constructing an Environment for Shared Learning

Colleen Dietz
Associate Director of the Center for Learning, University of Southern California

In this session you will learn a little learning theory (constructivism); why it is important that learners get the opportunity to learn from each other, and how you can design your course to enable a collaborative learning environment. This session will demonstrate some of the techniques shared by having conference participants collaborate with each other.

Creating an E-Learning Technology Strategy

Tony Karrer, Ph.D.
CEO/CTO TechEmpower, Inc.

This is a time of great opportunity to use technology to impact human performance. Yet, many training and development managers do not have a captured and codified E-Learning Technology Strategy. Simply put, an E-Learning Technology Strategy is a description of how the organization plans to use technology in the pursuit of their business and learning strategy. It starts with the primary business objectives and links these to specific types of interventions and needs. It then shows a plan for the structure of people, process and technology that ultimately supports the business strategy. Normally, these are captured in a fairly brief presentation.

In this presentation, Dr. Tony Karrer, one of the top technologists in E-Learning and Performance Support, will quickly walk you through the elements of creating an E-Learning Technology Strategy including:

• Why an E-Learning Technology Strategy is needed
• A simple E-Learning Technology Strategy process
• Building blocks and common barriers for the strategy

You will take away the basics of how you can create a strategy for your organization.

Social Software and the Future of F2F

Vicki Suter
Director, iCohere

In the association world in particular, we have tended to think of a virtual space as some sort of alternate electronic analog for face-to-face, as a lower-quality replacement location for learning and interaction when the physical is not available. We might realize significant advantages if we think of virtual spaces as interwoven or intertwined with face-to-face experiences — whether a conference, a meeting, or classroom instruction - in equal partnership, into an integrated learning environment that takes seamlessly takes advantage of all appropriate technologies, including social software. Among other things, this can lead to a new kind of conference, one that "develops into a richer, more useful combination of event and object, interactions and content… becoming an enduring container for experiences and knowledge" (Social Software and the Future of Conferences-Right Now, EDUCAUSE Review, January/February 2005).

The Future of E-Learning Panel: Do We Stay or Do We Go Now? Online that is… The Association Profession and its Outlook on E-Learning

Tamara L. Christensen
Director, Online Learning ASAE & The Center for Association Leadership

Despite its growing popularity, questions remain about the immediate value (i.e. ROI) of online learning with a majority of associations. The lack of research on its effectiveness in the association profession, the high costs and complicated logistics of developing online programs restrain many non-profits from taking the plunge. However, more and more associations believe the claimed advantages of cost savings, just-in-time learning, any time, any where, in any place at one's own pace. Gradually, associations and non-profits alike are testing the waters in E-Learning. Pioneer movers are gradually reaching the reflecting pool and disseminating their experiences within the community, where E-Learning is slowly achieving awareness and recognition from boards of directors, executive directors, and educators. Whether you're an association professional, stakeholder, or curious onlooker, learn what the future holds for E-Learning in the association profession and how associations are realizing the need to go online — Now!

The Future of E-Learning Panel: Six Criteria for Formal Learning Programs

Clark Aldrich
Author of Learning By Doing and Simulations and the Future of Learning

In the near future, all formal learning programs will be judged against six criteria. Here they are.

The Future of E-Learning Panel: Learning Networks and Collective Wisdom

Kathleen Gilroy
Founder and CEO of The Otter Group

Kathleen Gilroy, CEO of the Otter Group, will build upon her pre-recorded presentation, and using case studies from the US Army and Merrill Lynch / MIT Investments will illustrate how peer-to-peer, performance support learning networks can leverage collective wisdom to win the race for knowledge worker productivity in ways that traditional training systems cannot.

From Mythology To Leadership: How Stories From The Past Can ShapeThe Future

Mark Shimada
Program Manager, The Boeing Leadership Center

The journey to the future of collaborative learning is a path with many dragons, all one version or other of the dragon of the old order — Holdfast, the keeper of the past. Mark Shimada, Program Manager, The Boeing Leadership Center, will describe a new approach he has been using for a project to create a dynamic, learner-centered and community–based learning environment, the Learning and Development System. The approach is rooted in the metaphor of the Hero's Journey, a very traditional and archetypal story, but it has produced tremendous individual and institutional creativity and innovation, as all find their own leadership position in the project as they imagine and live their own leadership stories.

Emergent Technologies for Learning

Kathleen Gilroy
Founder and CEO of The Otter Group

Recognizing 2005 as “The Year of Enterprise RSS,” Kathleen Gilroy, CEO of the Otter Group, looks at how Enterprise RSS systems, incorporating blogs, wikis, and multiple types of data feeds, can form powerful learning networks for organizations. These learning networks can demonstrably increase knowledge worker productivity and job satisfaction and result in new forms of business intelligence.