Special Session Speakers

• 

  Dr. Phillip Harris

  Association for Educational Communications and Technology, USA
  
  

  Topic: Defining Learning, the Learning Theory that Drives Instructional Design, and Measurement, Assessment, and Evaluation Issues

  Abstract: This discussion will focus on how we define learning, the assumptions we make about the individuals, the content and the situation where the learning will take place. We are at a place where we need to define the learning task by something other than a number on a test. The instructional design activities assume that the individuals taking part will learn something new and be able to demonstrate that learning. Historically, we have depended on a paper and pencil test and now computer generated tests to answer the questions about whether someone has learned. New insights into how the brain functions give us new opportunities to rethink our notions of learning and how it happens.

  Short Bio: Dr. Phillip Harris is executive director of the Association for Educational Communications & Technology. He is the former director of the Center for Professional Development at Phi Delta Kappa International, the association for professional educators, and was a member of the faculty of Indiana University for twenty-two years, serving in both the Department of Psychology and the School of Education.

• 

  Dr. Richard Cornell

  University of Central Florida, USA
  

  Topic: Teacher is out...10,000 miles away. eLearning on Steroids, Keeping it together, Act 2
  Co-presented by Dr. Cheng Chang Pan, University of Texas at Brownsville

  Abstract: During the summer of 2013, in my role as AECT International Envoy,  I made personal visits to a number of AECT's International Affiliated Organizations in China, Hong Kong, Seoul, Jakarta, and Taiwan, with follow-up e-mail messages to our affiliates in Malaysia, Singapore, Canada, Turkey, India and Japan, the latter three waiting in the wings to cement an official affiliation agreement between their Japanese Indian,  and Singaporean Affiliates and AECT.  There were multiple purposes to my communiques, both on-line and in-person, but the visits were intended to put a personal face of AECT into their national educational technology organization and, as well, to gather information about their various activities.

  In June of 2014 the Principal Investigator(s) , Dr. Cheng-Chang Pan, from the University of Texas at Brownsville, Dr. Robert Doyle, Associate Dean at Harvard, and Dr. Richard Cornell, Emeritus Professor of Instructional Systems at the University of Central Florida sent a follow-up short survey asking that a representative of their association's governing board survey their officers to obtain answers to a few direct questions.

  While the survey is short the answers to our questions may also be brief, or not.

  The hidden point we are particularly interested in is the degree to which any of the AECT International Affiliates have annual meetings, and other meetings during the year, and, most importantly for our purposes, do they engage in any specific projects as an organization?  What we are trying to really find out is: do they have any programs featuring further education, workshops for their members AND members in their communities and schools?

  Our bottom line, one we will likewise be addressing when our team meets at the annual ICEM Conference in Eger, Hungary this October is: "Besides engaging in the primarily-self-serving activity of making presentations and then publishing them for the world to see, what, if anything, are our International Affiliated Associations doing in addition within their own nation to make things better?

  We will very clearly be also making this point when we deliver this message to our friends in ICEM (www.icem-cime.org).

  We will, we think. be one of the few making presentations wherein improving the social good will be at the core of what we think organizations such as ours should be doing, and far more! One of these days before passing on, Dr. Cornell wants to give this same message in an AECT General Session, and then let the fun begin!

  Short Bio: At the age of six, Dr. Richard Cornell, also knowns as "Dick, Doc C, or even Hey You!", was put on a steam train from his home in Toronto, Canada in 1939, with a name tag around his little neck, and delivered by the railroad conductor in Chicago to the waiting Superintendent of Mooseheart, the Child City, an orphanage where he lived for the next eleven years.  In those days, since he had neither brothers nor sisters, suddenly he had 500! His life since then has somehow or other managed to rise from having little or nothing to his name save his single suitcase, to a person whom, while never ever winning, was a nominee for the AECT Presidency five different times!  He served as the first American president of the International Council for Educational Media, a UNESCO affiliate.  In the '80's, he was working two jobs; one as full-time professor of Instructional Systems Design at UCF, the second as an invited NASA "Summer Scholar" at Kennedy Space Center.

  While at KSC he began to look at human factors conditions faced by astronauts and went to Budapest to meet with the first Cosmonauts from the Soviet Union. He was one of nine world-wide, presented with a Lindberg Foundation Grant to begin looking further at human factors conditions, this time for long-haul commercial airline crews.  For the next three years, even while classes were in full session, he made numerous international night flights to Latin America, the UK, Honolulu, Cairns, Sydney, and Guam. Needless to say, his weekends and school vacations were laden with flying thousands of miles while testing the cockpit crews for fatigue.  He was not their best friend at the end of a long distance flight!

  In 2003, after thirty-five years at UCF, Doc C retired and two years later began as adjunct for the Educational Technology program at the University of Texas at Brownsville.  While there he expanded his UCF-based, F2F international issues class to much the same at UTB-Brownsville save for one small detail, the latter university said he could only use the internet to teach as their entire Ed Tech program was solely on line! In 2013 he concluded his  eLearning International Issues class, taught on-location for China and Taiwan for the past five years, preceded by two years teaching the class from his Florida-based home office.  He admitted that, on July 7th of 2013, during the last class, connecting from the National Taiwan University back to Texas, that tears welled up as he bid them his last farewell. Fast forward to the summer of 2014, back to China he comes! This time he's hidden away in an apartment 16 km distant from Beijing city center, working on his very first sole-author book, "Chinese Graduate Student Survival in the USA: What Mom Forgot to Tell You!" to be published by the China Daily Publishing Corporation, in Chinese with an English URL also available. His Chinese "son" Deng Kaiqiang, currently studying at the University of Central Florida in the ISD Master's program, will be translating the book, assisted by co-editor "Vivian Xu Wei Wei, 21st Century Editor from the China Daily. With some luck and excellent support talent from my agenttranslator, and editor, we may have a few copies of the book available to you in Shanghai; I'll speak to the publisher!

  As always, having traversed more than seventy-five countries, he looks with excitement to be returning to one of his favorite cities in China, Shanghai! Da jiao hao!

   

• 

  Dr. Youqun Ren

  East China Normal University, China
  

  Topic: On the State Curriculum Standards of High School Information Technology, China

  Abstract: 

  Short Bio: Dr. Youqun Ren is Vice President of the East China Normal University (ECNU) and a professor in the Department of Educational Information and Technology at ECNU. He received his Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Master's degree in Higher Education, and Ph.D. degree in Curriculum and Instruction. Dr. Ren has written extensively on instructional design, curriculum studies, and educational technology, including more than 80 journal articles, 2 books, and several book chapters, among many other types of publications. Dr. Ren has helped to introduce to China several important books in the field, including The Handbook of Research on Educational Communications and Technology (3rd edition) and Instructional Design: the International Perspectives (Volumes 1-3). He is the chief coordinator of the translation effort and the chief translator of those books. Dr. Ren has given approximately 100 presentations in China and 10 other countries. He is a Fellow of Institute of Curriculum and Instruction and a member of Learning Science Research Center at ECNU. He is also the Director of the Associated Center of United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization - Asia-Pacific Programme of Educational Innovation for Development (UNESCO-APEID) at ECNU. He has been actively involved in many UNESCO projects launched by UNESCO Headquarter, UNESCO Bangkok, and International Bureau of Education (IBE).

• 

  Dr. Feng-Qi Lai

  Indiana State University, USA
  

  Topic: Chinese Scholars' Perspectives Regarding Educational Technology

  Abstract:  The purpose of this study was to understand the perspectives that the Chinese scholars hold regarding educational technology. A cross-sectional survey with purposive sampling was used to gain this understanding. Fifty-two participants representing faculty in educational technology from 34 different universities in China, majority ranging in ages from 36 to 50 years old, most having worked in the educational technology field for more than 10 years, completed and submitted the survey. After analyzing the data, the author found that most participants perceived that the strength of educational technology in China was attributable to the strong funding support from the Chinese government, but the faculty members also felt this field needed help with research methodology. To help improve educational technology in China, the major efforts the participants believed would be most useful included self-development, enhancing academic exchanges, conducting research, applying theories in practice, and improving training/teaching and learning. The pace of development in educational technology in China is fast, however, there is concern for how Chinese scholars deal with the potential problems arising with this rapidly developing field. The current situation in China provides great opportunities for academic exchanges globally.

  Short Bio: Dr. Feng-Qi Lai is Professor of Educational Technology at Indiana State University. She received her Ph.D. in Educational Technology from Purdue University in 1997. After her graduation, she worked for corporations in the Chicago area until 2002 as Director of Training and later as the Senior Instructional Designer/Project Manager. Prior to 1992, she taught K-12 and in the university for a total of more than 14 years while in China. Dr. Lai was one of the founders of the Society of International Chinese in Educational Technology (SICET) in 2003. She served as SICET Secretary 2003-2004 and introduced SICET to AECT; hence, SICET became an AECT affiliate in 2004. She was SICET Vice President 2004-2005 and chaired the first SICET division conference with AECT. She served as SICET President 2005-2006 before retiring from the Board of Directors in 2007. Dr. Lai started her publications and translations in 1983. Her first translation entitled Writing Scientific Papers in English by O'Connor, M., & Woodford, F. P. was printed in 1983 (62,000 copies) and reprinted in 1985 (62,001 – 72,100). She translated papers from Nature and Science. One of the papers she translated received the Award for Scientific English Translation at the Second Scientific Translation National Competition, China, in 1983. Her publications include books, book chapters, and journal papers in both English and Chinese. She also worked on more than three thousand phrases in A Complete Dictionary of English-Chinese Idiomatic Phrases edited by Xing, Z., the work of which was started in 1991 and published in 1995. Since 2005, Dr. Lai has been actively involved in academic exchange with universities in China and invited by more than ten universities in China to present and teach courses in the summer.  She received honorary titles and certificates from Shanghai Normal University (2006), Association of Shandong Higher Education (2007), Henan University (2013), and Henan Normal University (2014), respectively.