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GAIL MATTHEWS-DENATALE

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NERCOMP Launches a Conference Blogging Initiative

Posted March 7th, 2008 by Gail Matthews-DeNatale, Simmons College
0 Comments | 1059 Page Views

Conferences are great, but after they’re over it can be difficult to remember all that you’ve learned, as well as to share that learning with others who didn’t attend.  To address this challenge, NERCOMP is piloting a blogging initiative for its 2008 conference (conference to be held March 10-12 in Providence, RI).

Four sessions and one pre-conference workshop will be documented in The NERCOMP 2008 Blog.  Each session’s moderator will serve as its blogger, and presenters will also contribute.  Sessions topics include:

  • Open Source Learning Management Systems (LMSs)
  • Rethinking Computer Labs
  • Supporting Digital Humanities Research
  • Supporting Learning Initiatives with WordPress
  • The Future of the Library

To read about these sessions and to access the blog, go to http://blogs.nercomp.org/blogs/nac2008/

Instructional Design for Online Learning: A NERCOMP SIG Event

Posted March 11th, 2008 by Gail Matthews-DeNatale, Simmons College
0 Comments | 6573 Page Views
One of the advantages of writing about your own workshop is that you can benefit from participant evaluations. Over seventy-five people attended the full-day workshop on Instructional Design that I led last October,[1] and at least twenty seven of those in attendance had never before enrolled in a NERCOMP event. Over twenty five of these people drove more than five hours roundtrip to participate. This leads me to believe that many people feel a compelling need to understand and benefit from instructional design, so much so that people will step out of their comfort zones and venture, literally, into new territories.

Review of "Emerging Trends for Teaching and Learning" A NERCOMP event (10/27/05)

Posted March 20th, 2006 by Gail Matthews-DeNatale, Simmons College
0 Comments | 14732 Page Views
In the field of educational technology, there have always been “emerging trends.” But after attending one of this year’s  NERCOMP workshops on the topic, Gail came away with the feeling that right now, the range of possibilities on the horizon is particularly rich. She highlights for us some of the main ideas discussed and provides a list of links to technologies that were referenced during each presentation.

The Horizon Report: A NERCOMP SIG Event

Posted November 6th, 2006 by Gail Matthews-DeNatale, Simmons College
0 Comments | 3796 Page Views
The Horizon Report, a publication developed by the New Media Consortium in collaboration with the Educause Learning Initiative (ELI) "identifies and describes emerging technologies likely to have a large impact on teaching, learning or creative expression within higher education." Reviewer Gail Matthews-Denatale attended a NERCOMP event about the 2006 Horizon report and reports on a fascinating workshop where "presentations were adapted on-the-fly to address participant questions and therefore sessions merged into a fluid day-long experience."

NERCOMP Review: Supporting Digital Humanities Research

Posted April 11th, 2008 by Gail Matthews-DeNatale, Simmons College
0 Comments | 2272 Page Views
Gail Matthews-DeNatale blogs the digital humanities research (DHR) session at the  2008 NERCOMP Conference. Project leaders from Brown, the University of Vermont and Wheaton talk about DHR and student and faculty engagement, how to achieve sustainability and scale, and perhaps most important: how to get these fascinating projects done in the first place. 

Learning from Video Games: Designing Digital Curriculums: A NERCOMP SIG Event

Posted February 15th, 2008 by Gail Matthews-DeNatale, Simmons College
2 Comments | 10580 Page Views

Not so long ago, the stereotypical computer gamer was a geeky adolescent male who basked in the glow of a computer screen for days at a time, living on nothing but junk food and soda. But these days, as I observe my two daughters, I know that computer-mediated games can be a healthy pursuit and that they are now central to the lives of many youth. For example, my 10-year-old spends hours playing online Webkinz games to earn "cash” so she and her 9 year-old sister can purchase furniture for the house of their stuffed animals' avatars. The youngest also desperately covets the Wii, longing for something to do that's more "active and interesting” than TV.

My daughters are teaching me that digital games can be multi-faceted, social, compelling, and intellectually stimulating worlds. In comparing the richness of good digital games with the mind-numbing worksheets that my daughters bring home each day from school, it's apparent that educators have a great deal to learn from computer games. In early October, 2007, a group of NERCOMP workshop participants met in Southbridge to do just that.