We are looking forward to the NITLE Symposium, which will take place April 16-17 in Arlington, Virginia. As befits the conference theme, “Inventing the Future: Innovative Models and Practices in Liberal Education,” the Symposium is experimenting with different approaches to foster interaction, build community, and spark creativity and discourse. Even if you’re not able to be physically present, we encourage you to participate by commenting on the proceedings and following the #nitlesym Twitter hashtag.

Proceedings

To foster discussion before, during and after the Symposium, we are publishing the conference proceedings using the CommentPress platform. CommentPress, which allows readers to make paragraph- or page-level comments on the text, has been used to support open peer review for several scholarly publishing projects. We encourage you to comment on, question, and discuss the extended abstracts that make up the proceedings. Furthermore, poster presenters have created short videos describing their work, enabling symposium attendees to get a sneak preview of the posters and those who can’t attend to develop a richer understanding of the work presented.

Conference Communications

Stay tuned to NITLE’s Techne blog or follow the #nitlesym hashtag on Twitter to keep up with the Symposium.

Innovation Studio

The NITLE Symposium will host the NITLE Innovation Studio, a leadership development program that brings together faculty and staff from the NITLE Network to tackle thorny challenges facing liberal education. Teams from the Studio will present their work to date during Concurrent Session 1D and invite feedback from the audience. During the course of the Symposium, they will continue to work on their projects and present an updated snapshot of their work at the Innovation Marketplace.

Attending the Symposium?

If you are attending the Symposium, there are several opportunities to share your ideas and participate in open conversation, including via the Birds of a Feather session and Innovation Marketplace.

Birds of a Feather

To enable groups with shared interests to come together in informal conversation, the Symposium will devote Tuesday’s lunch-time slot to birds-of-a-feather sessions (up to 8 topics). If you would like to organize a birds of a feather session, please contact Lisa Spiro at lspiroDOTnitleDOTorg.

Innovation Marketplace

The NITLE Symposium will conclude with the Innovation Marketplace, a game-driven experiment in collective discourse. During the marketplace, participants will share three-minute lightning talks addressing the broad theme of innovative models and practices in liberal education. For example, speakers can give brief descriptions of projects or processes, float a proposal or hypothesis, or articulate an idea sparked by the Symposium. We also encourage conveners of birds of a feather sessions to share a summary of their discussions as part of the Innovation Marketplace. What sets the Innovation Marketplace apart from typical lightning talks is an element of friendly competition aimed at at promoting discussion and crowdsourcing knowledge. Everyone will have five “attention bucks” to divide among their favorite ideas. Once the presentations are over, the audience will circulate and go shopping for the best idea. The presenter who collects the most bucks will be declared the winner and receive a token prize, as well as bragging rights. To sign up, please contact Lisa Spiro at lspiroDOTnitleDOTorg. We will accept sign-ups until the Marketplace begins; first come, first served.

What impact are tablet computers having on teaching and learning at liberal arts colleges? How are faculty and students using or producing media such as games, blogs, podcasts and digital stories?  Such questions will be considered at the 2012 NITLE Symposium: Inventing the Future, which includes papers, posters and panel sessions on the pedagogical significance of technologies such as tablet computers, alternative reality games, blogging platforms, e-portfolios, and in-class polling. My colleague Bryan Alexander and I are examining some of these technologies and approaches through NITLE’s  New Learning Resources initiative, which currently focuses on e-books, open education, and gaming. Read the rest of this post »

Collaboration has emerged as a key strategy for small liberal arts colleges as they build the future of liberal education.  Just as technology empowers students to break down barriers as they pursue answers and solutions via highly collaborative processes, it also enables institutions to advance innovation through inter-institutional collaboration.  The 2012 NITLE Symposium: Inventing the Future reflects the importance of collaboration in a number of sessions (listed below).  The Symposium will take place April 16-17, 2012 in Arlington, VA.  Registration closes Monday, April 2.  You may also follow the Symposium virtually via the conference hashtag, #nitlesym. Read the rest of this post »

To adapt a turn of phrase from William Gibson, the digital humanities are here, albeit unevenly distributed. Gibson was actually speaking of the future, but for the 2012 NITLE Symposium: Inventing the Future, either wording is correct. As we explore the future of liberal arts colleges, digital humanities has emerged as a key development. Here are a list of sessions related to digital humanities on the Symposium program.  The Symposium will take place April 16-17, 2012 in Arlington, VA.  Registration closes Monday, April 2.  The symposium hashtag is #nitlesym. Read the rest of this post »

What do MOOCs mean for higher education?  These Massively Open Online Classes and related distance learning projects (Udacity) were the subject of a NITLE impromptu videoconference discussion today. Read the rest of this post »