edna.edu.au

Global education online

The Future of Online Learning: a global education context

This paper was prepared in January 2010 at the request of AusAID to inform the future direction of the Global Education website Project. It seeks to provide a brief overview of future trends and issues related to online education, with a particular focus on global education online. The principal author was Cecily Wright, with input from Pru Mitchell and Cathy McNicol of the Global Education website project.

We sought to provide an overview of initiatives in Australian education relevant to online learning and to present key issues related to 21st century learners, teachers, pedagogy, curriculum and technologies. In looking for digital content to support online global education the key elements sought were that content was interactive, visual, media-rich, collaborative, searchable, exchangeable and community-enriched. Barriers to online learning identified include teacher capability, internet filtering, infrastructure, copyright, equity of access and cost.

Discussion and feedback on the paper is welcome. There is a forum for this purpose in the Global Education Projects Support Group.

Tags: global education papers
Posted at 12:00AM Feb 02, 2010 by Pru Mitchell  |  Comments[0]

How to write a conference paper

[Relocated post: Originally published on 30 June 2007]

• Do a thorough literature review - comprehensive for Australia and your sector, and at least checking international papers and key documents from other sectors, or complementary fields. There is no point presenting what others have already written, but building on their work benefits everyone.
  
• Pull together relevant work and themes from existing presentations by colleagues
• Set up [del.icio.us/diigo] tags and let people know what you are researching so others can contribute relevant material and follow your research.
  
  
• Draft an outline of the paper, and organise collected quotes, documents, readings, links and ideas under key headings. At this stage I find it best to keep the references firmly attached to quotes as footnotes, even if this is not the final format required.
• It is not enough to just collect material. Remember to make time to actually read and note these.
  
  
• At least four weeks before the paper is due, take a writing day away from the office, (and may be even offline!) to write a first draft from the material collected.
• Create a 'to do' notepad document where you note gaps that require further research, quotes to research or references to follow up.
  
  
• Blog the big questions/issues you have identified at this stage and invite comment.
• Continue to collect, read, think, follow up on the 'to do list' and clean up the paper.
• Remember to check back to the abstract and the conference requirements to ensure you have not strayed too far from the original submission.
  
  
• At least one week before the paper is due, do the final cut including correct referencing and styling and give it to at least one proofreader. You need to leave time to make the changes that they will suggest, and follow up any leads they provide to key references.
  
  
• Submit the paper in the required manner and ask for confirmation that it has been received. Find out how and when the paper will be published, and whether you are permitted to publish online either before or after the conference.
  
  [If it is a refereed paper, you will need to re-work it in line with the comments received back from the reviewers, and resubmit. There may well be a very short turnaround for this process.]
  
  
• SAVE a copy of the final paper clearly labelled as such in your official personal repository/file space. Then back it up.
  
• Provide a copy of the final version of the paper to the editor of your organisation's document archive/repository and website if appropriate, and advise of any embargo on publication.

Note: Sometimes the paper is not required until after the conference in which case you have the luxury of including any feedback, comment or issues raised by participants in the final version. The paper will also be more up-to-date.
However, by this stage you will quite probably never want to look at this paper again and will wish you had finished it before the conference.

Tags: research how to writing events papers conferences
Posted at 01:57PM Feb 01, 2009 by Pru Mitchell  |  Comments[0]