Beyond Boundaries

Just returned from a very stimulating conference in Grand Forks, ND. The title was Beyond Boundaries, and the topic was technology in (higher) education.

Some great speakers. One of the most interesting was George Siemens, and the great news is my office has already lined him up to come speak at the U of M later this month. His work on connectivism reminds me of my neural net map research back in my linguistic grad student days. Everything old is new again.

Speaking of being a grad student, being at a conference where academics were discussing things with actual Real World Applications made me consider for the first time in a long time returning to school. I would definitely be interested in continuing to discuss some of the issues raised at this higher level, to learn more and put my own ideas out there. I get to do some of that through my current day job, but it was great to hear people talking about things that have been on the edge of my attention, and to formulate and articulate my own thoughts on these topics: the impact of technology on students and citizens in general, the implications of social communities on the web, whether classrooms are even needed anymore, what life-long learning means, etc.

So will have to think about that, but in the meantime, will learn more on the web, natch.