2010 NMC Symposium on New Media and Learning

March 23, 2010 - March 25, 2010
Online hosted by NMC

The 2010 NMC Symposium on New Media and Learning, the fifteenth in the NMC’s Series of Virtual Symposia, will explore the impact of new media on teaching, learning, research, and creative inquiry, especially in higher education.

The 2010 NMC Symposium on New Media and Learning, the fifteenth in the NMC’s Series of Virtual Symposia, will explore the impact of new media on teaching, learning, research, and creative expression, especially in higher education. New media, for this event, is interpreted broadly as anything from creative uses of digital media and new forms of communication to alternative publishing methods and media-rich tools. The Symposium seeks to explore new media in the context of a current social phenomenon and not simply as a means of content delivery.

Featured Speakers

Join keynote speakers Joe Lambert of the Center for Digital Storytelling and Constance Steinkuehler of the University of Wisconsin--Madison in sessions that delve into topics from educational gaming to telling deeply compelling stories using digital media. The annual Symposium on New Media and Learning is a conversation about the most vital and relevant applications of new media for education.

About the Symposium

The NMC Symposium on New Media and Learning convenes an annual discussion among experts, practitioners, researchers, teachers, learners, artists, and others to examine issues central to new media and its applications for teaching, learning, and creative inquiry. The yearly Symposium is intended to offer a forum for reflection on the core activities and values at the heart of new media departments in learning organizations of all kinds.

flickr creative commons licened image by jspad

Growing out of the NMC’s New Media and Learning Initiative and earlier conferences such as the 2006 Symposium on the Impact of Digital Media, the Symposium on New Media and Learning will provide a forum for exploring key issues that NMC members are thinking about on a daily basis. Each year, Symposium attendees will be encouraged to investigate emerging forms and uses of new media, present the results of pilot projects and research, reflect on ongoing practice, and engage in dialog about new media as a trend affecting the way we teach, learn, and communicate.

Symposium Themes

The Symposium is designed to stimulate dialog around the ideas, tools, best practices, and philosophies that underpin the use of new media in education. New media, for this event, is interpreted broadly as anything from creative uses of digital media and new forms of communication to alternative publishing methods and media-rich tools. The Symposium seeks to explore new media in the context of a current social phenomenon and not simply as a means of content delivery.

Proposals are encouraged on any of the following themes, but this list is not exhaustive and selections will not be limited to these categories:

• digital gaming in education
• digital storytelling practices
• new forms of multimedia production and delivery
• social media, social networking and global connections
• new media and mobile devices
• data visualization
• media-rich communication tools
• new literacies
• any technology or practice that shows promise for engaging students and supporting teaching and learning using new media

Sessions should describe new approaches, illustrate case studies, or address the implications for learning and teaching of themes like those above.

The NMC Symposium on New Media and Learning is intended to be an ongoing conversation, focused on the applications of new media to education.

Symposium Venue

The NMC Series of Virtual Symposia, now in its eighth year, is an exploration of online communication tools. Each of the 14 Symposia held to date has taken advantage of the state of the art for online gatherings. The 15th Symposium will be convened in the NMC’s private virtual space, the Hakone Project. This virtual space is supported by the same technology that underlies the virtual world of Second Life™ but is located behind a firewall in a secure and private environment. While the events take place in a virtual world, the Symposium is not about virtual worlds.

The NMC Series of Virtual Symposia

The NMC Series of Virtual Symposia is designed to explore emerging topics in education and technology, using current communication technologies to bring people together online in a way that offers many of the same affordances as a face-to-face conference. Of particular importance are opportunities for the kinds of social interactions that make in-person gatherings so valuable: hallway conversations, end-of-the-day informal gatherings, opportunities to speak with presenters in between sessions, and highly interactive breakout sessions that invite participation from the audience.

Each Symposium is designed to deepen our understanding of the ways technology can be applied in the service of education and the larger needs of society, and to further explore the effects of new media and new technologies on learning, social interaction, creative inquiry, self-expression, and more.

Sessions, which will be conducted live, can incorporate a variety of visuals and rich media, and are generally about 45 minutes in length, with about one-third to one-half that time devoted to dialog with participants using the audio tools of the environment.
 

Registration

Online registration is available February 22, 2010 - March 17, 2010, closing at 11:59 PM Pacific Time of the end date. Late registration fees apply thereafter.