Educators campus-wide will gather together April 20 to discuss how to better use technology in teaching.

The McMaster community is invited to participate in the 13th annual Learning Technologies Symposium, hosted by the Centre for Leadership in Learning (CLL) and RIVET.

The symposium will focus on technologies that can be used in teaching and learning to promote quality in education and features a keynote by Bill Muirhead, associate provost, academic at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT).

UOIT has spent the last seven years as the only university in Ontario to require students to have laptops. Muirhead will share lessons learned, the benefits of a technology-enhanced learning environment and discuss the challenges faced by educational institutions as the role of personal and institutional technologies expand.

The plenary address, “Transforming Lectures from Content Delivery to Synthesizing Knowledge”, will be delivered by Timothy Stelzer. A high-energy particle theorist, Stelzer has led the development and implementation of tools for assessing the effectiveness of educational innovations in introductory physics courses. As part of this work he collaborated on the development of the i>clicker and is currently working on the development and assessment of web-based prelectures.

The day will also include a preview of Desire2Learn, the new learning management system that will be launched for the start of the September academic term.

“By attending the Learning Technology Symposium faculty will have the opportunity to network and learn with their peers about opportunities to enhance student learning through effective use of technology,” said Susan Vajoczki, director of the CLL. “As well, the provider of our new learning management system, Desire2Learn will be available to answer questions and provide a sneak preview of their system. This is the system that will be replacing ELM for Fall 2010.”

The Learning Technologies Symposium will have a variety of offerings including peer-reviewed presentations, a showcase highlighting teaching technologies and services at McMaster and exhibits from technology vendors and publishers.