Journals are one source of online papers;   conference proceedings another.    Back in November, ODLAA, the ODL Association of Australia, held its 17th Biennnial Conference in Adelaide;   papers are now available.

There are a lot (I didn’t bother counting, but I’d guess at 70-80), ranging widely in topic and quality, from keynote speeches from (amongst others) Sir John Daniel, to the inevitable highly specialized contributions:   “Distance education as a means of continuing professional development for indigenous Christian theological educators in rural Papua New Guinea”, for example, or “Proposed online adaptation of an existing distance learning course for Vietnamese Primary School teachers”.

So I didn’t make any attempt to scan them all.    Those I did included:  

“Tools of the trade:   Learning technologies for distance learners”, by Paula Williams.    It looked promising.    The paper itself, however, was rather dull;   a theoretical overview of developments within OTEN, a major antipodean provider.

That said, one observation did catch my eye:   a universal shift towards mobile devices and a suggested preference amongst some student groups to prefer learner feedback via text rather than email.    So, has anyone within the ODL QC family tried replacing email feedback with text message feedback?   

“Animations: A key advance for open and distance learning?”, by Richard Lowe:   an interesting topic, even if the paper was a little ponderous for my taste.

“Lessons to be learned from the failure of UK eUniversities Worldwide Limited” from Paul Bacsich of Middlesex University: a nice review, albeit of rather old news.

“Distance learning – Social software’s killer ap?”, by Terry Anderson.    This paper argues that social software and distance learning are made for each other, and the former in particular will blossom when distance educators make real attempts to exploit it as part of overall delivery.   

“Relationships not technology are the keys to Online Learning”, by Mark Keough, inhabits similar ground.    The model he describes is may be a little cumbersome for ordinary mortals, but the points he makes are valid.

Sources:   programme, tools of the trade, Animations, UKeU, killer ap, & Relationships