KEYNOTE ADDRESS: Sykes Theatre
9:10a-9:50a "Research-Inspired Learning Maximization: 13 Things Your Organization Needs You to Know"
As learning professionals, we are bombarded every year with thousands of messages telling us that there are better ways to do what we’re doing. Sometimes we find these messages inspiring, sometimes depressing. But what if some of these messages were true, and some were false, misleading, or simply off point? Fortunately, recent research on learning, memory, and instruction (and what some call brain science) are leading to solid learning recommendations for trainers, instructional designers, and learning developers. In this provocative keynote, noted learning consultant and Serious eLearning Manifesto Instigator Will Thalheimer will share critical insights from the research.
Will Thalheimer, PhD, is a consultant and research translator, providing organizations with learning audits, research benchmarking, workshops, and strategic guidance. Will shares his wisdom through keynotes, research reports, job aids, and blog posts. Compiler of the Decisive Dozen and one of the authors of the Serious eLearning Manifesto, Will blogs at willatworklearning.com, tweets as @WillWorkLearn, and consults through Work-Learning Research, Inc.
CORPORATE TRACK: Room #115
10:00a-10:45a "Learning on the Fly in the HealthCare Arena"
The healthcare clinician is pressed with limited time to address the educational needs of their professional career. Presentation of creative blended learning methods and venues will be shared that demonstrate ways to meet a clinician’s licensure, professional and developmental requirements remotely to the clinic or the comfort of the home.
Diane Durham, MS, OTR is the Senior Director of Education and Staff Development for Genesis Rehab Services. In this role, she is responsible for centralizing education and management training across 46 states as well as overseeing an active student and university program for all therapy disciplines. Diane is a current AOTA national trainer for the AOTA Fieldwork Educators Certificate Program. Diane presents on a regular basis on leadership development, therapy student training and education. She has been an Occupational Therapist for 28 years, concentrating on brain injury, stroke treatment and leadership management. Most of her clinical work took place in her tenure at Magee Rehabilitation Hospital in Philadelphia, PA.
11:00a-11:45a "Introduction to Adobe Captivate 8"
An introduction to core features of Adobe Captivate 8, including:
- Selecting and setting up a project
- Workflow tips for creating e-learning with Captivate
- Using the various assets and interactions
- Publishing your project
Mark Siegrist, Manager, Customer Education @ Vertex, Inc, has worked in all areas of the training and development field, but specializes in web and mobile learning design and development, leveraging current technologies to produce meaningful learning interactions that increase productivity.
1:15p-2:00p “Utilizing digital-based learning concepts and platforms to transform and sustain the onboarding learning experience for new hire employees.”
Come see how Comcast University is transforming the learning experience for new hire sales representatives by using digital-based platforms that help facilitate and structure training activities that are a part of their learning journey.
Janine Watson is Senior Director for Learning and Development, Program Management @ Comcast. She is responsible for leading the development of learning and development strategy and initiatives for the Comcast Business Sales and Service Assurance channels. She serves as a liaison to business leaders to initiative needs analyses discussions and subsequent content design and development, as performed by her Program Management team. Janine also partners with the Senior Director of Commercial Sales, Delivery and other CU regional leaders to understand training needs, and to devise efficient processes that help CU Trainers prepare for, and deliver training programs to field sales representatives and leaders. Prior to this role, Janine spent 15 years in the Pharmaceutical industry in the areas of Sales, Sales Training and Sales Management. She holds a Masters in Organizational Dynamics from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Bachelor of Arts in Mass Media Arts from Hampton University.
2:15p-3:00p "Replacing Lectures with Interactions"
At PLI we are looking for ways to improve learner experiences by building a portfolio of interactive programs with cutting edge technology and instructional design. These new programs use innovative “learning-by-doing” techniques that challenge participants to engage with the subject matter. In this presentation we will highlight the design, development and delivery of three different courses that originated in lecture-based formats. In their current form they challenge learners to think, act and apply their knowledge and skills in simulated real-world activities.
JC Kinnamon, Ph.D., is currently a Producer in the Research and Development Division at the Practising Law Institute in New York City, where he is responsible for improving live and online educational offerings. He has worked in learning and development for over 20 years in various capacities, including a member of senior management for a company producing e-learning products for corporate users.
Melissa Scrimo is President and Founder of Applied Intelligence Consulting. She is a performance consultant with 20+ years of experience in the corporate world. She specializes in learning strategy, training project management and instructional design for large, multi-role complex operational and learning projects.
3:15p-4:00p "Tin Can can…"
This session will provide a brief introduction to this new technology plus share how it is currently being put to use at Devereux, a national behavioral healthcare organization. Through a group discussion, we’ll brainstorm different ways that this tool might be used to support other learning processes. Bring your questions and innovative ideas to share with the group.
This team of presenters (Jeremy Aho: Manager of Learning Innovation, Rachel Cervin Kubel: National Learning Specialist, Mary Imbornone: National Director of Learning & OD) is responsible for insuring that Devereux’s workforce of 6000+ employees have the resources, performance support and technological solutions to learn and develop professionally. In addition to supporting a national network of treatment providers, the team has launched a successful e-Learning Instructional Design & Development Bootcamp for those who want to learn how to create their own online courses.
HIGHER ED TRACK: Sykes Theatre
10:00a-10:20a "Icebreakers for Creating a Community"
I’d like to explore the use of icebreakers in online courses as a way to get students involved and to facilitate connections immediately. The session will start with the importance of community online then explore some successful icebreakers. The Q&A section would then have the participants break into groups and come up with some new ideas for icebreakers. Creativity and thinking outside the box will be encouraged.
Constance Case is an Assistant Professor of Costume Design and Technology at West Chester University of Pennsylvania. While she has been an effective F2F teacher for over 15 years she is now actively pursuing any and all information on Distance Education. Over the past year, Constance has attended several PADLA and Sloan Conferences., has taken the Sloan C online course, New to Online: the Essentials. She is honored to be the recipient of the CVPA Dean's Initiative Award to Expand Access to Education through Technology and WCUPA’s Distance Education/Teaching and Learning Initiative Grant for Costume Design Course.
10:25a-10:45a "Making Asynchronous Online Instruction Worth the While"
Organizing an online asynchronous course requires a number of organizational skills and a different set of expectations than a synchronous online course. Having had the experience of teaching both kind of online courses in the humanities, I will discuss best practices to stimulate participation among peers and assure success in instruction and learning outcomes. Also, I’ll discuss activities to avoid when thinking about asynchronous instruction.
Cristóbal Cardemil-Krause, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Spanish at West Chester University of Pennsylvania. His research interests are the representation of the Amazon Basin throughout time. He has taught a number of language and literary courses online in a number of platforms, including eCollege, Sakai, Blackboard, and Desire2Learn.
11:00a-11:45a "Tools and Technology for Classroom Collaboration"
With all the new gadgets/devices being release every year, the question for supporting these devices and adding them to our classroom environment as tools for collaboration is increasing. We will give a brief overview of our system design and how we accommodate these requests along with how users are creating new ways to collaborate in our environment.
Yanan Guo, Sr. System Administrator, at The Wharton School University of Pennsylvania, has a degree in MSIS from Pennsylvania State University and has been with the Wharton School for 9 years. He works on projects that focus on classroom technology upgrades for the main campus in Philadelphia, and satellite campus in San Francisco. In addition to the immersive Wharton Telepresence system, he manages hardware and vendors to maintain installed control systems and infrastructure related to instructional technology.
Michael Speechley, System Administrator, has worked for the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania for 7 years. Prior to his current role, he worked for 8 years as an Events Technician for the University of Delaware, where he earned his undergraduate degree. His training is in audio production, but he has branched out to cover many other areas of AV, including recording, projection, digital displays, audio and video conferencing, and infrastructure.
1:15p-2:00p "Creating Engagement Online"
This session will demonstrate the rationales and development process for creating a fully online professional development program in which faculty and staff gain a better understanding of how to teach online through their school’s unique culture. Using a series of professional development courses as an example, this presentation will show the new instructional opportunities available to faculty, staff, and instructional designers, through technological innovations including the tools found in modern learning management system like Canvas, online conferencing tools, and other technology resources. Rather than just focusing on the tools, the session will demonstrate the importance of incorporating school culture into online learning spaces and the best practices for online instruction. The presentation will employ examples from actual professional development courses, multimedia resources, interviews from veteran educators, and an analysis of survey data from our past professional development participants. In addition, the session will look ahead at the upcoming professional development needs for online instructors and how institutes of higher learning can address these topics in the future. Educators and researchers across many academic disciplines, educational technologists, trainers, instructional designers, and program coordinators will benefit by seeing how cooperation between staff, faculty, and instructional designers can inspire everyone involved in faculty professional development to meet student needs in a dynamic and engaging way.
Nick Gogno, Instructional Designer, has been a member of La Salle University's Instructional Design team since November 2012. He enjoys collaborating with faculty to support digital learning tools and environments that can enhance student academic achievements. Nick has a Master’s of Science in Education and Instructional Technology from St. Joseph’s University and a BA in English and Secondary Education from La Salle University. Prior to joining La Salle, he led instructional design projects, provided training in hybrid and online learning, and facilitated online courses for Kamehameha Schools in Honolulu. He also worked as an English teacher for five years at Upper Darby High School as well as serving in many other roles in technology-centered instruction, curriculum development, and web design. He views online learning as an exciting, growing field that marks a fundamental shift in the intellectual development and empowerment of today’s students.
Regina Hierholzer, Director of Online Programs @ La Salle University,specializes in online course design, course development, and consults with faculty and program directors about how teaching and learning takes place in the online course environment. One of her specialties is online collaboration. She has been supporting faculty at La Salle University in eLearning since March 2005. Regina has an MS in Information Technology Leadership (ITL) and a BA in Digital Arts and Multimedia Design (Dart), both from La Salle University. She has had experience in Web Design and front-end Web Development, which opened up a wonderful opportunity to be involved and interested in the development of the online teaching environment. She believes that her own online student experience has provided many invaluable lessons to continue supporting faculty for online teaching readiness. Her commitment to online teaching and learning, and to La Salle University, is to help our faculty have a satisfying and rewarding experience while preparing and implementing their teachings online.
2:15p-3:00p "More Than Just Instruction: Leveraging Your LMS to Support Campus Processes"Chances are, your institution’s learning management system is used for online instruction. Period. With a little flexible thinking and a little bit of programming and content development, its functionality can be extended to meet other support needs – pre-training, just in time training, metrics on user comprehension of training materials, archiving of training and support presentations, improved student/advisor communications, instructional continuity for large and small emergencies, reduced committee meetings, streamlined employment application review processes, course review and development, and program assessment. This case study examines how the Richard Stockton College of NJ uses its LMS for more than just instruction.
Linda D. Feeney, Ed.D., Director of E-Learning, The Richard Stockton College of NJ, has a diverse educational background including a B.S.Ed. in music, M.A,Ed. in mathematics and computer science, and Ed.D. in higher education leadership. Her professional experiences have been centered in the education environment evolving from classroom teacher to technology specialist to technology manager.
3:15p-4:00p "The 7 Cs of Online Content Design"
For years, the jewelry industry has identified the perfect diamond by using the 4 Cs – clarity, cut, color, and carat. A similar standard can be applied to the development and presentation of online content. Learn how to transform a diamond in the rough into a dazzling gem of a presentation or course.
In higher education for more than two decades, Joann Haws serves as Assistant Dean of Lifelong Learning at DeSales University (Center Valley, PA). In addition to administrative duties, she teaches college-level courses in the University’s social science department. Always looking for new opportunities in professional development in technology, Joann believes participating in online courses as a student has offered a unique perspective that has influenced her own online course development and delivery.
K-12 TRACK: Room #10A
10:00a-10:45a "Leveraging the Model UN for Truly Global Learning Communities"
Model UN is an ideal way to link global education initiatives with distance learning communities. Join us to hear how one school uses an innovative approach to bring together students from four continents to form a dynamic Model UN team for a truly global learning experience.
Darby Carr, Head of Laurel Springs School since 2011 has almost 20 years of experience in education. Ms. Carr’s experience includes serving as Head of School for an international distance learning program, as well as Chief Administrative Officer and Principal for a charter school. She is a member of the International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL), Academy of International Schools Heads (AISH), Association of International Educators (NAFSA), and Association for the Advancement of International Education (AAIE). She holds a B.A. from Bates College in Psychology/Economics.
11:00a-11:45a "Nearpod – building unlimited learning options"
Bring your classroom to life with interactive mobile presentations created and customized by teachers. Participants will explore multiple features of the Nearpod program from the student and teacher perspective. This presentation provides educators with a transformational approach to instruction while collecting data to drive instruction.
Jeff Rothenberger Program Administrator Berks County Intermediate Unit comes with twenty-two years of classroom experience, two years as a Technology Integration Specialist, K-12, eight years as the Secondary Technology Coordinator for curriculum and instruction, and the past four years as the Program Administrator in the Office of Professional Development and Curriculum specializing in Educational Technology Services for the Berks County Intermediate Unit #14. He is also a corporate professor for Harrisburg University and Wilkes University for their educational technology graduate programs.
1:15p-2:00p "Your #1: Make your District the Best Online Learning Option, Period."
This presentation will identify the key elements of effective online and blended learning programs that can be implemented by LEA’s throughout the region. Quakertown schools have a very rich tradition of online and blended learning that will enhance the perspective of other districts administrators and teachers. Attendees will be provided with practical examples of implementing an online option in their district and where to go for support in the process. As the Quakertown Community School District strived to meet the needs of students in the 21st Century, it began a cyber-program and a one-to-one device initiative at the high school level. By utilizing in-house teachers to build content and develop courses in blended and fully online environments, all students’ grades K – 12 have been afforded the ability to tailor their education to meet their individual needs. Through professional development, coaching and technical assistance, teachers have been, and continue to be, supported in creating rigorous, engaging online content to enhance their face-to-face classes, as well as develop independent online courses that mirror the curriculum taught in the classroom.
Anthony “Tony” Carty is the Supervisor of Cyber Programs at Quakertown Community School District (QCSD) and a Consultant for the Bridges Virtual Education Service in Bucks County Pennsylvania. Through his work at QCSD and Bridges he continually models and assists in the implementation of high quality online and blended instruction. Tony lives in Bucks County with his wife of 17 years and three daughters.
2:15p-3:00p "Second Life: The Distance Ed Vehicle"
This presentation highlights the best practices of instructing in Second Life and other virtual worlds. Furthermore, the presentation will offer suggestions on connecting learning management systems and synchronous classroom conferences to the virtual world classroom. A plethora of tools and instructional designs will be discussed to enhance the distance learning environment.
As the District Technology Coordinator for Cornwall-Lebanon School District, Dr. Jason Murray promotes the integration of technology within curriculums to enhance student learning opportunities. Web 2.0 tools, cloud computing, virtual worlds and open source ideals create a new dynamic journey for education. The culture shift of technological transformations within the classroom offers a vibrant future for education.
3:15p-4:00p "Pennsylvania Learns iTunes U"
Pennsylvania Learns iTunes U is an easy-to-use tool that provides resources and activities designed to enhance what Pennsylvania students learn and help bring classroom lessons to life. Created by Pennsylvania educators, Pennsylvania Learns serves as a virtual one-stop-shop of valuable resources by assembling video footage and web content from subject matters experts, as well as thousands of pages from libraries across the world. Organized around instructional framework modules available in the Standards Aligned System (SAS) portal, each course contains rich content and robust resources that have been vetted to assure alignment to the standards. The resources will be used on wide-array of efforts – from helping students grasp challenging concepts to augmenting the lesson plans designed by educators. This session will introduce attendees to Pennsylvania Learns and its potential for classrooms across the Commonwealth.
Anthony Gabriele is currently the Supervisor of Curriculum and Instruction for the Garnet Valley School District, as well as adjunct faculty with the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Literacy Network. Throughout his career, Anthony has worked as a 7-12 English Language Arts teacher and a K-12 instructional staff developer, with a specific focus on integrating literacy, technology and curriculum. During this time he has taught and co-taught everything from Academic level Inclusion English to Advanced Placement English, co-authored a number of English and Science curricula, served as a Classrooms for the Future Teacher, worked as an instructional/technology coach with school teachers from Detroit to Baltimore to New Jersey, and co-founded the group education blog http://www.bestandnext.org/. Anthony is also in his 3rd year working on the Pennsylvania Learns project, which is a joint venture between the Pennsylvania Department of Education and Apple.
Dr. Jean M. Dyszel, Education Consultant, is a lifelong educator. Starting her career as an English teacher, she has served as both a high school and middle school administrator, federal programs coordinator, director of human resources, and ended her public school career as an assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction in the West Shore School District. Spending several years as a Distinguished Educator, she is currently a member of PDE’s Quality Review Team – primarily working with the Standards Aligned System (SAS). Recent projects include the work associated with transitioning to PA Core Standards, Project Based Assessments (the alternative to the Keystone Exam), the PA School Performance Profile, Pennsylvania Learns iTunes U, and the SAS Institute.
SPECIAL FEATURE: Throughout the Entire Conference
"The PULSE Comes to PADLA to Capture Key Learnings"
Besides coming to the Annual PADLA Conference and Expo, listening to Rod Murray’s Pulse Podcast is one of the best ways to keep up with the latest educational technologies. This year, PADLA is using the power of social media to share key conference and expo learnings through Rod’s Pulse Podcast. Long time PADLA members Rod Murray and Gwen Burbank will be conducting live interviews throughout the conference to capture participant’s key learnings and take-aways from the workshops and Expo. If you have a key learning you want to share with your colleagues, please reach out to Rod and Gwen. You can then look forward to listening to these key learnings after the conference on Rod’s Pulse Podcast web-site.
Gwen Burbank is currently the Curriculum Manager/Instructional Technology Specialist for the MBA program at St. George’s University in Grenada, West Indies where she also teaches Leadership Development and Communications. Gwen has a Master’s in Instructional Systems/Training Design and Development from Penn State University – Great Valley, and an MBA in Multi-Sector Health from St. George’s University. Gwen has worked at Unysis, AstraZeneca, SunGuard Higher Education (now Ellucian), Performance Development Group and several non- profits. On an on-going basis, Gwen works with organizations to build training and learning infrastructure through mentoring Jr. instructional designers and developing train-the-trainer programs. In her free time, Gwen enjoys running, yoga, tennis, scuba diving, cooking and reading.
Dr. Rodney B. Murray, Executive Director of Academic Technology at the University of the Sciences (www.usciences.edu), is charged with advancing all aspects of educational technology. His goal is to provide the teaching and learning platforms and services that will move USciences forward in classroom learning, hybrid and distance education. His team is responsible for the learning management system, instructional design, classroom technology and technology training for faculty and staff. Dr. Murray promotes the latest e-learning technologies, including Web 2.0 applications, social media, blogs, wiki's, e-portfolios and podcasts. He has become a recognized expert in this area, producing his own podcast on educational technology since 2006 at www.rodspulsepodcast.com. His monthly e-learning technology podcast, The Pulse, can be found on Inside Higher Ed at www.insidehighered.com/ThePulse. He earned his Ph.D. in pharmacology from Temple University School of Medicine. Prior to joining USciences, Dr. Murray was the founding director of the Office of Academic Computing at Thomas Jefferson University where he also taught pharmacology. He continues to teach pharmacokinetics and is a Councilor for the Mid-Atlantic Pharmacology Society.