My Experiences at AECT 2014

As I mentioned in a previous post, I have been spending the last several days at the AECT 2014 International Convention. This year was an outstanding experience, and I was surprised by the sense of mission, vision, energy, and excitement among the faculty and the organization's leadership. It was an outstanding experience.

I will highlight some of my experiences below. I also tweeted throughout the conference, and you can review my AECT 2014 tweets here.

The conference hotel was the Hyatt Regency in Jacksonville, Florida. A very nice place.

I roomed with my great friend Dr. Greg Francom. We had a great time, and I appreciate his kindness and friendship. Here he is by the river just outside the hotel.

Me just outside the hotel.

Beth Oyarzun and Sheri Anderson, finalists in the Pacificorp Design and Development Competition. I had the privilege of serving as their mentor for the competition. They did an excellent job.

All of the finalists in the Pacificorp Design and Development Competition.

My shoes during one of the presentations.

Keynote presentation by Dr. Johannes Cronjes. Some of his writing has had a great influence on my thinking in instructional design, and I enjoyed hearing from him. (That is him in the top-left of the picture. My good friend Mike Rook is on the bottom-right interacting with Dr. Cronjes' highly interactive keynote presentation). 

I participated in a discussion on the future of instructional design programs. I presented my thoughts, which I blogged about earlier here. It was really fun interacting with the other presenters, and I enjoyed sharing my thoughts.

I ran into Caglar Yildirim who was presenting a poster on teaching 21st Century skills (which I call the skills of knowledge work) using a marshmallow challenge. I liked how he visualized some of these skills in this image.

I ran into my scholarly hero Dr. David Merrill. It was great to see him and chat with him for a few minutes. He remains very active in the field, and I hope to emulate his creativity, courage, and drive as a scholar. A good man.

I attended a presentation by Dr. Charles Reigeluth on the 6 core changes that must take place for a paradigmatic shift in K12 (and I believe also in higher education) education. He is certainly a visionary leader and I appreciated the presentation. I later won a copy of his new book Reinventing Schools at a raffle. I've skimmed it and have enjoyed it thus far.

Conversation with Anthony Pina

Last night I had a brief conversation with Anthony Pina, the Dean of Online Education at Sullivan University. He shared several insights related to administration of online education in higher ed. It was an illuminating conversation, and I will certainly begin learning more about this area.

Again, this was a great conference experience, and I am excited to be a member of this association. I plan on continuing my involvement and appreciate the many wonderful opportunities AECT has given me as first as a graduate student and now as a scholar and educator.