[Portfolio] Sakai Virtual Conference Planning - Invitation to Participate

[Wilma Hodges]

For those of you unable to attend the Sakai Virtual Conference BoF at Open
Apereo, I'd like to quickly recap some of the highlights and invite you to
participate in the planning team for this event. We had a small group in
attendance, but a very lively and productive discussion!

Many community members have expressed a desire for a Sakai event that has
more faculty participation and is more focused on best practices and
teaching and learning topics. We would like to address this need by holding
a Sakai Virtual Conference in early November, 2014. The online nature of
the event saves travel time and costs associated with attending an on-site
conference, and we hope that the cost savings and convenience of attending
virtually will encourage greater participation from a wide range of Sakai
users, including faculty, instructional designers, students,
administrators, and IT staff who may not normally travel to attend Apereo
events.

Some ideas which emerged from the BoF include the following topics and/or
tracks for potential presentations:

   - "Demystifying Open Source for Faculty" session (possibly keynote)
   - A Course Showcase track for current and past TWSIA winners to demo
   their courses
   - Student Experience Lightning Talks where faculty can nominate
   exemplary students to showcase their work
   - Talk with Sakai Lead Developers - informal Q&A via Google Hangouts or
   other webinar/chat interface
   - An Instructional Designers BoF to discuss successes and challenges in
   supporting Sakai at their institutions
   - A session for local IT staff on best practices for Sakai database and
   server maintenance
   - Virtual Focus Groups and Online Sakai Usability Testing to inform user
   interface improvements and enhancements
   - Breakout sessions/presentations on a variety of pedagogy and
   teaching/learning topics

If you are interested in being on the planning team for the Sakai Virtual
Conference, please fill out the Doodle poll at the link below to indicate
your availability for meeting within the next couple of weeks. We'd like to
hit the ground running and get the call for proposals out as soon as
possible. November will be here before you know it! :-)

http://doodle.com/ahswzsnrwuy8nmaw

I hope you will join us!

Wilma

*Wilma Hodges*
Director of Training & eLearning Initiatives
Longsight
wilma at longsight.com
www.longsight.com
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