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Science suggests that we have explored only five to seven percent of the ocean floor and less than one-half percent of its entirety. Much like the ocean, the future landscape of education is unexplored and an intriguing unknown. The opportunity for us as educators, designers, and researchers is to embrace the role of an explorer and create change through our work in order to shape, rather than adapt to, the shifting educational landscape. We must explore this opportunity through innovation in research, evolution in design, and transformation in pedagogy, specifically focused on the aesthetic qualities of the learner experience. In this presentation I will share the design and research evolution of three contemporary projects that have impacted more than 25 million learners and educators around the world. These projects range from a seven-continent expedition focused on the intersection of education and sustainability, an e-assessment environment for world language learning, and a platform designed to afford students and teachers with a global voice for reflection and discussion. Ultimately, it is my hope that these narratives will stimulate discussion about our roles as designers, educators, and researchers in the fields of instructional design, learning sciences, and interaction design. #TCCReEd

Dr. Charles Miller is an Associate Professor of Learning Technologies and Co-Director of the LT Media Lab in the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Minnesota. Miller’s research explores opportunities to transform education through design, bridging the gap between aesthetic learning experiences and contemporary interaction design. With nearly two decades of new media design, development, and research experience, Miller has received awards from organizations such as Yahoo!, AIGA, USA Today, The Washington Post, American Scientist, IBM, Adobe, SITE, and AECT for his work on projects ranging from environmental expeditions and political campaigns to information visualization platforms and mobile education initiatives. Miller has published more than one hundred journal articles, book chapters, and conference proceedings on the role of design in education; has received more than ten million dollars in federal grant, foundation, and corporate funding; and has given hundreds of talks on design in education around the globe.

Opening up education is one of the main global trends in higher education. Open Education Resources (OERs) and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) can be considered as the consequences of this trend. Over the last couple years we have been reading a lot of ideas about how OERs or MOOCs will revolutionize the higher education systems. These news or ideas led us (educators) think ‘Is it true?’, ‘Are theses MOOCs or OERs new and enduring?’ or ‘Are they just hypes and will be forgotten soon?’, ‘How will all these change the faculty roles and responsibilities?’ and so forth. This presentation tries to answer these questions based-on 30 years of experience in open and distance learning. It will also provide an insight about European and Asian reactions to the MOOCs and OER movements. #TCCPPF

Dr. Cengiz Hakan Aydin is a professor in Anadolu University of Turkey, a dual mode higher education institutions offering distance education to millions in Turkey, Europe and West Asia. Dr. Aydin is currently serving as the Dean at Faculty of Economics, one of the distance teaching schools in Anadolu. He has served as the Director of the Center for Research and Development in Distance Education, the President of International Division of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT), the board member of the International Council for Educational Media (ICEM). He is currently in the steering committee of the OpenUpEd initiative, a MOOCs platform for European universities. Aydin also serves as a member of the Editorial Board of the International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning (IRRODL), the Educational Media International. Dr. Aydin’s research interest mainly focuses on social dimension of open and distance learning, learning design for open and distance learners.


Assessment plays a vital role in delivering, evaluating, monitoring, improving and shaping learning experiences on the Web, at the desk and in the classroom. In the process of orchestrating educational technologies instructional designers are often confronted with the challenge of designing or deploying creative and authentic assessment techniques. The talk provides examples of the conceptual development and implementation of assessment approaches in three different areas:

• Needs Assessment: At the outset of an instructional design project, we work with stakeholders to gather data that helps us to reach the audience effectively and design user-friendly interfaces. Typical techniques are focus groups, surveys, qualitative interviews, personas and scenarios.
• Impact Assessment: Once the program or project is launched, we seek to understand how learners access online material or move through the curriculum, which helps us improve their experience. Data sources comprise Web analytics, social media metrics, learning analytics, surveys and interviews.
• Classroom Assessment: In the classroom, we aim to implement assessment techniques that support students’ critical thinking abilities and transfer learning skills. This includes peer-to-peer assessment, rubrics, portfolios and problem-based learning.

#TCCDesign

Stefanie Panke, Ph.D., is an Instructional Analyst at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In her current position she conducts instructional design projects that center on assessment and emerging technologies, in particular online publishing, e-books, conceptual web development, portfolios and rubrics. Prior to her current position she worked as Director of E-Learning at Ulm University, Germany. Stefanie holds a PhD in Applied Linguistics from the University of Bielefeld. In 2009, she completed her thesis on the information design of educational websites. During her PhD, Stefanie was a researcher at the Knowledge Media Research Center in Tübingen, Germany, where her team developed an award-winning portal on e-learning in higher education. Stefanie is passionate about applied research in the field of educational technology. Her interests comprise online learning in higher education, knowledge management in networked environments and informal learning with open educational resources. She serves as a member of several program committees (ED-MEDIA, E-LEARN, SITE), as a reviewer for e-journals (i.e. MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning), and as editor for social software at the Educational Technology and Change Journal.

You found some online stuff to incorporate into a class – so what? Proponents of open educational resources (OER) often focus on cost reduction as the key benefit and rationale for adoption of open content. While OER has been demonstrated as an effective savings strategy, the potential of open content goes further. This presentation presents an analysis of what “open” really means, and a discussion of OER’s potential to make a real difference at many organizational and policy levels. Using current policy examples and parallels with free and open-source software (F/OSS) development, it examines leverage available to OER adopters and suggests practices for educators at all levels of decision-making authority. #TCCSoWhat

Paul McKimmy, Ed.D., is a faculty member in the University of Hawai`i-Manoa department of Educational Technology. He serves as Director of Technology and Distance Programs for the College of Education where he herds the cats in instructional support, technical services, and distance learning design teams. Professionally, he gets excited about learning technical skills; leveraging open-source software; creating student success and maintaining a mild caffeine buzz. Personally, he dabbles in DIY, stand-up paddling, gaming, and occasional attempts at fitness. He is passionate about his 5-year old daughter and hopes that his professional endeavors will positively impact her educational experiences as she grows up.