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Global Learn Call for Papers Extended to Jan 31, Upcoming Global TIME (virtual in Feb), & E-Learn in October in Hawaii
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Good news. Global Learn Call for Papers was just extended from today to January 31st. Global Learn: Global Conference on Learning and Technology will be held in Melbourne March 28-April 1, 2011. It will be in the Sebel Albert Park, Melbourne. Looks like a nice hotel with pretty good rates ($133/night + tax USD and $153/night + tax Aussie dollars).

The GL 2010 conference was in Penang, Malaysia last May. It was the best conference I have attended in many years...it did not hurt to be held along the beach and have luscious views at breakfast, lunch, dinner, and each evening. So many great friends and colleagues were there. And there were superb keynote and invited speakers each day. Unlike most conferences I go to, I attended sessions throughout the day...every day (despite sitting at the beach most nights till 3 am sipping beers and listening to music...often with the likes of Tom Reynolds (from National U in San Diego who was on Fulbright in Columbia), Paul Kim (Stanford), Grace Lin, Curtis Ho, and many others (from the U of Hawaii--the largest conference contingent), Ke Zhang (Wayne State who was on sabbatical in China), Okhwa Lee (from Chungbuk National in Korea), Siew-Mee and Greg Barton (from Deakin and Monash Uni's in Melbourne), Marc Curcher (Dubai Men's College), Dorit Maor (Murdock U in Perth...she was my former visiting scholar), Katsuaki Suzuki (Japan), Thanomporn (Toh) Laohajaratsang (from Chang Mai U in Thailand...another former visiting scholar of mine from this past fall here at IU), Daniel Tan (NTU in Singapore) as well as his assistant Shirlene Tang, Abtar Kaur and Zoraini Wati Abas (from the Open U of Malaysia in KL...Zoraini really was the force that enabled this conference to happen), Teh Chiew Lan (from Penang, Malaysia), Elaine Khoo (from the U of Waikato in New Zealand), John Hedberg (from Macquarie Uni in Sydney), Insung Jung (International Christian U in Tokyo) and her husband Illja Rha (from Seoul National University in Korea...and many of his students), Mona Masood (former student of mine now in Malaysia), Joe Luca (Edith Cowan in Perth), Yayoi Anzai (Japan), Jake Enfield (good ol' IU), and many others...apologies to those not mentioned here or that I forgot). You can see that people came from all over the world. My IST doctoral student, Jake Enfield, went and presented 3 times and was a major star.

As you can see, I highly recommend it. What an event! New conferences are places where you can make the most impact and extend your social network well beyond anything you might imagine. Of course, Dr. Gary Marks and his team from AACE also made Global Learn in Penang last year in May a great conference experience. They have much experience with running such conferences and it showed. Love the conference bag by the way! I still use it. I get 20-30 such bags a year and only keep 1 at most and this was the one for 2010. Lovely! I also picked up two tailored suits that were shipped home--one blue and one white. The white one I had made 1 hour before departing...best suit I have...now that was close. Greg and Siew-Mee Barton must have bought 2-3 each and took all their friends to the same shop.

So these are the reasons why I highly recommend Global Learn this year in Melbourne. Excellent presentations, great views, lovely conference bags, cheap shopping (at least in Penang), plenty of night life, wonderful breakfast and lunch conversations, constant interactions and rest when needed, etc. And you meet international experts (and stars) in e-learning and technology in training and education. The keynote and invited speakers for GL 2011 should be posted in the next few days (I know since I am on the organizing committee and help found the conference along with many others). Perhaps I will see a couple of you there! For future reference, this conference will be held each year in Asia or the Pacific Rim (from Turkey and the UAE in the west to Taiwan and Japan in the east and from India, Australia, and New Zealand in the south to Russia and Mongolia in north). If you live in that huge region of the world, perhaps you can nominate one of your countries in the future and then help out.

Part of the Mission statement is: "The mission of Global Learn Asia Pacific conferences and events is to further the advancement and innovation in learning and technology. As the educational world becomes increasingly global, new ways to explore, learn, and share knowledge are needed. Global Learn serves as a means to connect and engage creative educators, researchers, consultants, training managers, policy makers, curriculum developers, entrepreneurs, and others in the topics and fields in which they are passionate." Read more about the mission and audience as well as the extremely current and cool list of conference topics. Are you an educational entrepreneur, head of a government agency, filmographer, educational consultant, instructional design specialist, flexible learning consultant, educational philanthropist, training director, e-learning director or evaluator, etc.? If so, I hope to see you at Global Learn in Melbourne. Again see the mission statement for additional potential audiences for this special conference.

I should point out that Global Learn is an AACE (the Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE) conference just like Ed Media (June 27-July 1, 2011 in Portugal), SITE (March 7-11, 2011 in Nashville), E-Learn, and now Global TIME (to be held next month for the first time—virtually). See all AACE conferences.

By the way, the International E-Learn Conference for 2011 is in Hawaii in October (Oct. 17-21) and the call for papers is due April 22. I am chair of the E-Learn exec committee one last year and happy to help you out in any way I can. The conference hotel is beautiful and looks over Waikiki beach (assuming it is the Sheraton Waikiki Hotel again). I have attended Ed Media twice there (2003 and 2009) and E-Learn once (2006) and loved each one. Though in 2006 we experienced 2 early morning monster earthquakes around 6.7 and 6.0 (7 minutes later) on the Richter scale and hotel swayed a bit and we had to present in the dark that day...but the food was very cheap and plentiful for the next 2 days. Smile.

Again, I hope to see many of you in Melbourne...and if you are going, drop me a note. My friends Dr. Siew-Mee Barton (from Deakin University) and Dr. Greg Barton (from Monash University) are helping with the conference and will try to arrange a wine tasting social before or after the conference. And the Formula 1 Grand Prix in Melbourne in late March 2011 will be next to the conference hotel just prior to the start of Global Learn, so get there early if you can (March 24-27th next to Albert Park). Vroom...vroom.

You have till January 31st, 2011 to get your papers in! Just do it. Here are the forms for the final call for papers!
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  posted by Curt Bonk @ 5:02 PM  
1 Comments:
  • At 11:51 PM, Blogger Mark said…

    One of the best reasons for going is to meet and work with Curt and people like him. I can only endorse what he says here - submit a proposal and hopefully see you in March.

    See you in Melbourne Dr. Bonk!

     
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About Me

Name: Curt Bonk
Home: Bloomington, Indiana, United States
About Me: I am a former accountant and CPA and a former educational psychologist. I am now Professor of IST at Indiana University and also adjunct in the School of Informatics. I founded and later sold SurveyShare. As president of CourseShare, LLC, I run around the world training instructors to teach online and give motivational talks about emerging learning technologies. I also write and edit books related to e-learning and blended learning. See bio and vita.

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Click here for information about my recent book, The World is Open: How Web Technology Is Revolutionizing Education.

Visit the Indiana University Home Page of E-Learning Expert Curtis J. Bonk.

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