In January 2021, we launched the e!GeoCommunity@ITC with the aim of bringing together our geospatial education community to share and learn from one another as we continue to adapt and innovate our education. Throughout the year we faced many challenges while continuing to navigate a mixed-mode of education that ranged from face-to-face to online and at times was hybrid depending on needs and circumstances. To help our staff and students we started a regular education talk series in March where our staff shared their experiences as well as brought in experts from around the world to talk about different aspects of teaching and learning.
Talks included online etiquette and teaching with technologies. Since moving online permanently in the last year and a half we have also had to adjust how we do things. This has led to the development of new online etiquette (Drs. Verplanke) but also thinking about copyright (Drs. Jager) and open science (Dr. Konkol) policies.
Over the course of the past year, technologies have changed and continue to change, providing us with the ability to create very dynamic and rich learning environments. However, staying on top of what technologies are available (and compliant with the organization’s policies), how to integrate and use these technologies, and who to call if you need help can be overwhelming. We brought in different speakers to talk about these different elements. Emily Baxter from Penn State University talked about the role of instructional designers, our e-learning specialists talked about their roles and resources available (Ivan Oliveira, Job Duim and Laura Cray) and Sean Riley (Computerphile) from the University of Nottingham talked about building online presence. As we prepared for our own summer travels we ended the year with a virtual excursion around the world by Wietske Bijker, Tiny Luiten, and Yolla Al Asmar who shared their experience in running a virtual study tour during the ongoing pandemic.
In case you missed our talks last year they are available at the e!geoCommunity@InspirationHour. And if you are interested in learning something new from e-learning specialist Laura Cray that you can apply in your classroom watch Laura’s 10-minute tips.
We (the Education Talk Series Committee@ITC) have put together a new talk series for the upcoming year. The Education Talk Series @ITC will be hosted monthly on Wednesday afternoons (3-5pm). Join us each month, not only for the talks but also to learn something new that you can use in your classroom from Laura’s 10-minute tips. For exact dates and topics check the schedule.
The first talk on hybrid education will take place on September 29th. For more details and to register please visit our InspirationHours website. We (Justine Blanford, Lisanne Verheij and Tia den Hartog) look forward to seeing you in the September session and onwards.
