Looking back at FOTE09

Focus

Tickets for FOTE09 sold out in record time, with the last being snatched up a mere 6 hours after we opened bookings. We were thrilled with this success and the pressure was on to deliver another great conference!

The core focus of the 2009 conference was on cloud computing and social media. To help address these key themes we gathered some of the leading technology organisations and academic practitioners in the UK.

Paul Miller cut through the hype of cloud computing, Simone Brunozzi (Amazon) talked about security in the cloud, Ray Fleming shared Microsoft’s vision of the collaborative campus and Pauline Yau covered Education and Collaboration during the first morning session on cloud computing.

Robert Moores from Leeds Metropolitan University shared his experience of moving to Google Apps, Will McInnes ponder about our social tomorrow (and share an obligatory kitten picture), James Clay used the wisdom of the crowd to answer the questions of what the future of learning will look like (remember to bring that harvest in!) and Nick Skelton asked the audience to stop worrying and love the internet.

Most notably we had our virtual worlds debate chaired by Harold Fricker asked our panel the question “Are Virtual Worlds a legitimate vehicle for learning and teaching?”. Defending this view were Pauline Randall and David Burden with the opposition being represented by Dr Alan J. Cann, senior lecturer at the University of Leicester, who’s pre-conference blog post “Virtually Useless” still makes for a very entertaining read – and Evan Dickerson from JISC RSC London.

An interesting article on TechRadar from September 2011 asked “Whatever happened to Second Life?” and argues that the hype didn’t help – and where Second Life is headed now.

Videos

Watch the FOTE09 presenations.

  1. Paul Miller – Cutting through the hype to see Clouds in context.
  2. Simone Brunozzi – Security in the Cloud
  3. Ray Fleming –  The Collaborative Campus and the Cloud
  4. Pauline Yau – Education, Collaboration & the Cloud
  5. Bill Ashraf – HE’s Free and Feral?
  6. Robert Moores – Google Apps – One year on
  7. James Ballard & Richard Davis – Integrating VLEs with Repositories
  8. Cloud Computing Debate
  9. Will McInnes – Our social tomorrow
  10. James Clay – Future of Learning
  11. Nick Skelton –  How to learn to stop worrying and love the Internet
  12. Dougald Hine – Unbundling the University
  13. Lindsay Jordan – The social revolution needs YOU
  14. Virtual Worlds debate

Presentations

A small selection of presentations from FOTE09

Quotes

“The conference was very well organized and the food/tea breaks were perfectly placed. My thanks goes out to the hosts and the presenters.”

John Mclear, Director from Etherpad Foundation

 

“Had an interesting day at FOTE09 last Friday as much because of the people there as the speakers. Generous breaks and a very convivial drinks reception at the end made for some useful conversation.”

Rose Heaney, Learning Technology Advisor from UEL

 

“Excellent chance to stop and reflect/speculate about our position and set it in context. Well organised but had an informality”

David Lloyd, IT Director from Esher College

Links

Mira Vogel is apart of the learning technology staff in the learning enhancement unit at Goldsmiths. Mira’s note froms FOTE08 can be found on her Celt Record Blog.

Rose Heaney attended FOTE09 and noted down her thoughts of the day in her blog, Pause for thought.

Pat Parslow’s blog, Brains working towards machine consciousness, discussed FOTE09 themes, presentations and what was learnt during FOTE09.

Pete Woodbridge, a lecturer in Open Media at Coventry University wrote a review of the day, on his blog, Viral Education.

 

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