I recently had the pleasure of attending the ULearn09 Conference in Christchurch, NZ.  I presented some sessions and attended many others – and had a really great experience.  During my time at the Conference I reflected on some of the things that set a successful conference aside from an unsuccessful one – and some of the things that you can do as a delegate to get the most out of an event.  So in the spirit of this reflection, here is my list of things you can do at a conference that will enrich your experience (possibly)!

1. Present a Conference session

 Present a session.  Even if you do it with someone else or break the time slot down and share it – just do it!  Often I find that the best networking occurs in the sessions that I present.  This happens because those that are attending my sessions already have an interest in the topics I am discussing.  I also find that I can get challenged in my sessions by those that have some experience but have questions or some doubts about what I am saying.  It doesn’t matter at all – presenting is definitely not a one way communication and I find I always leave a presentation with lots of ideas to put into practice.

2. Network with people you have never met

Networking is easy with people you know.  It probably isn’t really networking actually!  Find someone you have never met before and make a connection.  There may be no connection to be made – but have a go and see!  It can be easy to chat to those you are seated near in the Keynote or a session and even easier at a time in the day when delegates are taking a break.  Just introduce yourself and have a go – there is nothing to lose and it is great fun.

3. Check out the trade show

Definitely check out the trade show – but further to this, walk up to an exhibitor that is selling a product that you have never seen and ask them about it.  You may be pleasantly surprised.

4. Attend a session that you know nothing about

When you are looking through the conference program prior to the event, pick out those sessions that are of interest but also have a good look at those that are complete unknowns to you.  You may be tempted to rule these sessions out altogether – but how do you know that they are not of value to you if you know nothing about them?  It is a risk – and sometimes you will come away have learnt nothing at all.  However, you could also discover something new and incredible!

The cannon that was fixed in the bottom left hand corner of the screen can be moved freely around.  In addition, although it is hard to see on the image above, the enemy UFOs drop bombs.  The explosion effect is pretty impressive and utilizes some nifty particle code.

Another group of students has created a great Space Invaders clone.  The enemy space ships do speed up quite a lot towards the end and the frequency of their bombs increases – which makes it quite challenging!

I have students in roughly three categories at the moment.  I have a group of students that are flying in terms of their understanding and the development of their major game project.  In many ways this group has been challenging me in terms of their own needs – as I try to stay one step ahead of them and in many instances, not managing to get away with it!  This is where the teaching of IT presents it’s own unique challenges in that there are some many software types to learn and the depth at which we need to learn how to use them can be tricky to guage.  This group has an excellent grasp of C#, OO concepts, etc. and are creating code on the fly based on their own needs.

The second (and largest) group in the class are those students that are getting by using my code examples, adapting them and creating their own projects using these resources and others from the Internet.  Their level of understanding is good but not deep.  However, the projects they are creating are impressive.  Could they have created these projects without referring to the examples and tutorials that I have created?  Most probably not – but their understanding of C# is progressing and given more time, they would attain a level of independance that would allow them to do this.

The last group (thankfully only quite a small number) are those students that are struggling with the basics of C#.  I do acknowledge that this is the group I would like to do the most to address next Semester, and I think that this task will be easier given the amount of resources that I have created now. 

Very soon I will start transferring student’s work to the XBOX360 – I have already set up one in the back of the classroom for this purpose (connected to a large plasma screen that the Science department donated*).

*The Plasma screen has a black vertical line down the middle of the screen about an inch wide.  After about 15 minutes it disappears (there must be some component that needs to heat up or is overheating).  I might be able to find a solution to this on the web?

The first few weeks of the term were tough.  I had written a few tutorials – translating some of the content from the MS XNA Beginner’s Tutorials here.  Students started working through these tutorials and some were rushing through them much quicker than I expected.  Others were getting stuck with understanding the structure of an XNA / C# program, variables and constructs, etc.  This was very difficult as I was also trying to get my head around these concepts at the same time as trying to stay one step ahead of those that were finishing the tutorials that I had produced.

The general level of understanding of students during this time was poor.  The learning curve was a steep one and students were getting very little rewards for their efforts.  Their programs were almost impossible to debug as they were not familiar enough with the language and the interface.  However, it didn’t take long for things to turn around.

Once students had worked through the tutorial (in fact in many cases, even before they had finished), they started modifying the code and producing their own versions of the game described.  I decided to set this as the first mini-project and from this point on students flourished.  Students were creating versions of the tutorial game that I had not envisioned and many were very creative.  Many were still developing these mini-projects at the end of term despite the fact that we had moved on in the theory from the tutorial to some specific skills. 

Just prior to the end of Term 1, I produced my own mini-game called ‘Fozzie’s Banana Flip’.

By building this project up, I was able to demonstrate a number of additional skills to students such as sound, animation using sprite maps, collision detection, keeping score and randomisation.

The work that students are doing is really great and they are genuienly disappointed when the bell rings at the end of each class.  My aim is to get them started on their major projects with a view to porting these on to an XBOX360 at the end of the semester for play-testing.  I also aim to create a disk of all the games – it’s just a pity I can’t create an actual XBOX360 disk due to the security features of disks.

One of the primary tasks in evaluating any Web 2.0 content should be a determination about whether the use of the tool will serve to enhance the engagement of students within the context of the course.  I currently have a student teacher who has been teaching a number of my classes and I find myself using the word ‘engagement’ an awful lot in discussions I am having with him.  Without me knowing it, it has become my ‘word’ of 2009 (at least until I change my mind)!  Watching someone else teach my classes has made me wonder how engaging the tools and delivery methods I use are?  Are forums engaging to students?  If used in the right way, with the right amount of prompting and moderation – absolutely.  As are wikis, blogs, podcasting, online collaboration and many other Web 2.0 tools.  However, the byline to last year’s conference (which struck a chord with me then and continues to), is particularly relevant.  Technology alone cannot save us.  The use of technology for technology’s sake is counterproductive.

Take Twitter for example.  Now I know that there are many of you who use Twitter and love it.  I was open to using it and have played around with it for a few months now.  However, I struggle to come up with an educational application for it – especially one that would engage students in just the sorts of ways that I would like to.  I remain to be convinced and perhaps someone out there can set me straight?  Flickr is cool but I rarely use it in class.  Google Maps and street view are also a lot of fun and have certainly fueled some good IT ethics discussions – but again I struggle to find an application for my own classes. 

I certainly welcome any nifty ideas or resources that anyone cares to move in my direction – and despite how the paragraphs above sound, I will give anything a go.  Did I mention that it is all about engagement?

Certainly many of us have invested a great deal of energy in promoting our courses and introducing innovation and interesting programs like game design and animation into the junior and middle years.  Industry demand is high for IT graduates and job prospects are plentiful.  We have all tried to deliver the message – but it doesn’t seem to be working.  So what is the answer?

When I was elected to the position of VITTA President almost a year ago, I was determined to try and address this issue in a number of ways.  By developing stronger links with partners like the Australian Computer Society (ACS) and Multimedia Victoria, we were able to start producing materials to promote ICT careers.  The inaugural VITTA ICT Careers Expo was held at Xavier College and was attended by all the major stakeholders.  Student attendance was good – but below what we would have liked.  However, it was the first year of the event and as the flagship event of VITTA’s ICT Week, we are committed to building it up in 2008 and beyond.

There has been some criticism of the current VCE IT courses.  As one of the members of the writing team for the current course, I stand by its structure and content.  We were very aware of the falling IT enrolments and of the need to build in interesting and varied tasks.  We also built in tasks centered on career pathways. I feel strongly that the VCE IT courses need to have academic rigor and students expect this to be the case. But still VCE enrolments have continued to decline.  However, I would contend that this is not as a result of the content of the VCE IT study design, but rather one of a lack of student IT career pathways.

I feel strongly that clear student IT pathways will help address this issue.  For this to happen, the tertiary providers need to come on board.  At present, none of the tertiary providers list either of the VCE IT studies as a prerequisite.  Worse still, some stakeholders have suggested they prefer to have students enter their courses with no secondary IT experience, as they have to ‘unlearn’ students who have done a VCE IT study. At the same time, these very stakeholders have been beating down our doors to organise information sessions with our students to promote their courses, as their own enrolments have been declining in line with ours.

Imagine if the tertiary providers listed the VCE IT studies as prerequisites to their own courses?  Alternatively, perhaps undertaking a VCE IT course could earn a student course credits?  If the tertiary providers do not feel our VCE or middle school courses have vigour, why not get involved in writing teams and focus groups to produce resources and course materials?

The challenge has been made – a coordinated approach to this issue will help all of us in the long run and may well be a large part of the solution.