I attended the Conference on Technology, Reading and Learning Diversity (TRLD) in San Francisco, February 1-3, 2007.
I teach political science online and was looking for some tech training that would make it possible to improve instructional delivery to my 80 American Government students. Although my textbook has many “online extras”, I really didn’t know how to use most of them. The most useful session for me involved the use of simulation activities (students in the role of legislator, lobbiest, campaign manager, ambassador, etc.). My textbook has a plethora of such activities and the conference gave me some hands-on training on how to use them. I also attended a session on using student moderators for online class discussions. A third session involved “Blogs, Tags, and More: Making Sense (and use) of New Internet Technologies”; given the proliferation of online political sites and the upcoming 2008 Presidential Election, I learned how students can incorporate these tools into their political education. I learned about tags, blogs, RSS feeds, wikis, podcasts and more, including some potential problems and abuses.
In short, I got from this conference everything I hoped I’d get: Tech training, professional connections, and access to follow-up resources that I can call-on throughout the year. I would like to thank CCA/CTA and the District for the opportunity to attend.