2016 Keynotes
ICELW was delighted to have world-renowned learning technology expert Clark Quinn, Ph.D. along with promiment cognitive science and educational technology researcher John Black, Ph.D. as our keynote speakers for 2016! Additional information is below.
Clark Quinn, Ph.D.
Executive Director
Quinnovation
Walnut Creek, California, USA
Talk: Serious Shoestrings: Deep eLearning within Pragmatic Constraints
Most of elearning is woeful. Really! Too much is just tarted-up information dump and knowledge test. The reasons are understandable, if not excusable; there are too many people who don't understand learning design, there are expectations about what it looks like, there are misconceptions about subject matter experts, the tools have the wrong focus, and there are unrealistic expectations about time frames and resources required. Yet we need to do better. The good news is, we can. When we look at most design processes, we see inflection points that give us leverage. With small changes in what is currently producing ordinary elearning, we can produce much better elearning. Serious elearning. In this session, we'll explore the barriers, opportunities and steps to successfully integrate engaging experiences with effective learning, in the real world. Come see what learning can and should be.
About Clark Quinn
Clark Quinn, Ph.D., helps organizations align technology with how we think, work, and learn. He integrates creativity, cognitive science, and technology to lead development of strategic solutions including award-winning online content, educational computer games, and websites, as well as adaptive, mobile, and performance support systems. After an early academic career, Dr. Quinn has served as an executive in online and elearning initiatives and has an international reputation as a speaker and scholar, with four books and numerous articles and chapters. He blogs at learnlets.com, tweets as @quinnovator, and works through Quinnovation.
John Black, Ph.D.
Cleveland E. Dodge Professor of Telecommunications and Education
Teachers College, Columbia University
New York, NY, USA
Talk: Full-Bodied Learning: Applying Grounded Embodied Cognition to Improve Learning
Most of learning is thin and shallow and it is not understood very deeply, is quickly forgotten and does not really become part of the way the learners think about the world. As Dewey (1938) pointed out, learning without experiencing what is being learned is not meaningful. Modern research in embodied and perceptually-grounded cognition (Glenberg, 1997; Barsalou, 2008) provides a modern perspective on this: namely, that full understanding means that learners build a mental perceptual simulation of what is being learned, and doing that effectively requires as rich a perceptual experience as possible during learning (Black, Segal, Vitale, & Fadjo, 2012; Black, Khan and Huang, 2014). I will describe our research showing that computer and video games, graphic simulations and role playing in virtual and augmented worlds can provide these grounding experiences and can be effective when used in conjunction with other learning activities.
About John Black
John Black, Ph.D., is the Cleveland E. Dodge Professor of Telecommunications and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, where he is a member of both the Department of Human Development and the Department of Math, Science and Technology, and serves as Co-Director of the Institute for Learning Technologies. He has a B.S. degree (1970) in math from MIT and a Ph.D. (1979) in Cognitive Psychology from Stanford. He was an Assistant and then Associate Professor of Psychology and Computer Science at Yale before joining the Teachers College faculty. He has served as a consultant to the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, IBM Research and Bell Laboratories. He is the author of over 80 refereed publications and 4 books. His research focuses on cognitive research and its application to the design and use of educational technology.