Technology & Learning
Community
From the Field
March 1998
Online Learning
About Online Teaching: A Conference for Learning by Doing
by Jim Shimabukuro, EdD, Conference Co-coordinator, Associate
Professor, English, Kapiolani Community College, Hawaii, and Bert
Kimura, PhD, Conference Co-coordinator, Professor and Director,
Educational Media Center, Kapiolani Community College
Aloha! All TLC members
are invited to attend the Teaching in the Community Colleges Online
Conference, the premier Internet-only conference dealing with teaching
issues facing community college professionals. Join us from April
7-9, 1998 and “attend” over 100 presentations on Online Instruction:
Trends and Issues. Participate in open forums, visit with presenters,
discuss keynotes with colleagues, take virtual web tours to visit
Hawai`i, and relax and sip a tropical drink at the real-time Coconut
Cafe. Use email, the Web, MOOs and other Internet technologies.
From the beginning,
the goal of the Teaching in the Community Colleges Online Conference
staff was to offer college educators a viable professional conference
via the Internet--a completely online, virtual conference, one that
our peers could attend from the comfort of home or from campus computers
located anywhere in the US and around the world.
History of the
Online Conference
The idea first took seed in the Teaching in the Community College
List (TCC-L), a forum devoted to informal discussions on trends
and issues relevant to classroom teaching, and the Teaching in the
Community Colleges (Electronic) Journal_(TCC-J), which grew out
of the list. A completely online conference, we felt, was a natural
extension for the list and the journal. We would use email, web,
and MOO technology (1) to present papers and generate dialogues
among authors and audience and (2) to create a dynamic, "life-like"
conference atmosphere. From post-conference evaluations and informal
comments over the last two years, we've learned that our efforts
were successful: We were able to present viable, meaningful conferences
via the Internet.
The first Teaching
in the Community Colleges
Online Conference was in 1996. The theme that year was "Innovative
Instructional Practices." We featured approximately 43 papers and
attracted about 730 college educators. Keynote speakers were Eric
Crump and Bob Holderer.
The second conference
was last year, 1997. We had 70 presentations and approximately 1750
registered participants from nearly every state in the union and
from over 40 countries. The theme then was "Online Instruction:
Trends and Issues." Keynote speakers were Crawdord Kilian and Jay
Wootten. We added a new feature, Open Forums. We developed and found
hosts for 16 forums devoted to critical issues and timely topics.
At the end of last
year's conference, we realized that we'd only scratched the surface
of trends and issues re instruction via Internet technology. We
decided to do a follow-up in 1998: "Online Instruction: Trends and
Issues II." We were right about the interest. We received numerous
proposals for presentations and accepted over a hundred. The keynote
speakers this year are Lucy MacDonald and Steve McCarty. We're introducing
additional features and refining others, and we're expecting this
year's event to be even better than last year's.
For More Information
If you haven't registered yet, we hope you will; you'll be
joining us on an adventure that we think will alter your views of
online teaching and professional conferences. For more detailed
information re registration (a bargain at $35), the 1998 program
schedule, presentations, workshops, activities, etc., please go
to: http://leahi.kcc.hawaii.edu/tcc98
For additional information,
please contact Jim Shimabukuro at jamess@hawaii.edu
or Bert Kimura at bert@hawaii.edu
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