Cool Connections Conference, Sydney, 21-22 November 2006

The Cool Connections Conference was an opportunity for participants from around Australia to showcase their e-learning initiatives which were funded under various programs within the Australian Flexible Learning Framework.

If funding for this PfP blogging activity continues, I will report in detail on the ideas, tools and resources offered during the Cool Connections Conference.

In the meantime, it is worth noting that the core topics covered were:
. building collaborative networks
. moblogging and mobile learning
. podcasting
. digital storytelling (major emphasis - more on this later!)
. e-portfolios
. e-learning for indigenous learners
. voice technologies
. e-learning in trades and management

The highlight of the Conference was an Elluminate Session with George Siemens (Instructor, Red River College, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada). We also had participants from Brazil and the USA joining the Conference group in this on-line session that incorporated video, voice, electronic whiteboard and three on-line moderators.

George's presentation focused on his concept of Connectivitism, that he describes as A Learning Theory for the Digital Age. George's Elluminate presentation is available on his wikki - it incorporates an excellent summary of online tools and their functions (with hot links):
http://www.connectivism.ca/wiki/CoolConnections

George's superb blog, Elearnspace, is well worth a visit. His menu buttons are particluarly seductive:
Starting Enabling Doing Evaluating Managing Resources Home

George's blog also provides an integrated model of e-learning:
http://www.elearnspace.org/