This year for my conference choice I picked UBTech. The conference was held at The Mirage hotel in Las Vegas, baby, and it was during June so you can imagine how the weather was. But as everyone likes to say, “at least it’s dry heat!”
As the name suggests, UBTech is very tech heavy. If you are on a mission to find new technology for your classroom/school, this is the conference to go to. As I am an instructional designer, I did struggle to find topics more geared towards online learning but I still feel I came away with some useful knowledge!
The welcome address was presented by Gary Kayye, president and CEO of rAVe Publications. His address was focused on what he did in his classroom at UNC to make it more engaging for millennials. As a millennial myself, I found myself saying “yup that’s me” with everything Gary had to say about how we millennials choose to consume information.
The biggest thing is millennials love their phones and their tablets. When I get home from work you will find me lying on my bed face deep into my iPad even though I have a 49-inch 4k smart tv in my room. I am attached to my iPad. In fact as I am writing up this blog post I have my iPad sitting next to me with my notes from the conference. I also like to be comfortable when I am watching/listening to something, hence the bed.
The way we teach students needs to match how they consume that information, which means more technology needs to be in the classroom, and we need to create a more relaxed environment than what a lot of traditional classrooms provide. Students need to feel free and not restricted in their learning environment.
So what Gary did was created a room where seats and desks were movable. That way students can pick and choose how they collaborate with fellow students. Do you want to sit in a circle? Go for it! Do you want to set up seats in groups of 4? Go for it!
Gary also upped the technology game in the classroom by adding a Nureva wall—which is like a giant touchscreen phone on your classroom wall—instead of the traditional chalkboard. This is the future, and we can either get on board or fall behind and not provide the best for our students.
While at UBTech another eye-opening session I attended was “Adapting the One Button Studio.” I was very intrigued by this idea of being one button away from recording amazing video lectures for your class. Recorded lectures is one of the biggest ways to get information to students in an online course, but it can be challenging/daunting when coming into a recording studio to record. I know the recording studio we have at our department scares me as there’s a lot of elements.
Instructors want and need something easy and the one button studio—originally created by Penn State—is the solution. Basically the concept is that one button controls all the necessary components to record a video such as the lighting, the camera, and the sound. The only thing the instructor needs to do is plug in their USB drive, then push the one button and they are ready for recording. This is my dream setup and I hope that we can do something like that here at DePaul!
All in all the biggest takeaway from the UBTech conference is that technology is coming to education and we all need to get on board. Generation Z is coming and they are going to be even scarier than us millennials—so now is the time to prepare!