Preview: 2010 Sakai Conference

We hope you can attend the 2010 Sakai Conference, being held June 15-17 in Denver, Colorado. As it does each year, the event will bring together the many people who make up the diverse and vibrant Sakai community. Conference sessions reflect this diversity by exploring all aspects of Sakai—including support and training, innovative teaching and learning, new tools and integrations, and future directions.

If you’re attending, you’ll find members of the rSmart team presenting on a variety of topics:

• Senior Educational Consultant Kara Stiles and Senior Support Analyst Anand Mehta will focus on the configuration process, from the decisions a school must make before implementation to the creation of configuration settings.
   
• Educational Consultant Christian Bond will explain how to turn MS PowerPoint presentations into Flash-based, interactive training modules.
   
• Client Evangelist Nate Angell will help organize Sakai development at the conference by conducting two working sessions, which are open to all.
   
• Software Testing Engineer Corey McGarrahan will conduct a workshop on using Selenium test tools. (You’ll need Selenium Test Suite installed on your laptop, and a locally installed, working instance of the CLE is recommended.)

You’ll also find the rSmart team co-presenting with other community members, including rSmart clients. Nate and fellow Client Evangelist Randy Thornton will join Max Whitney, Technical Team Lead for rSmart client New York University, and Michael Feldstein of Oracle for a discussion of Sakai’s place in the changing LMS landscape. As part of the Sakai Product Council, Nate will also participate in a discussion of the group’s efforts with Sakai 2 and Sakai 3. 

rSmart Development Manager John Bush will be joining several others--including Kirk Alexander, Program Manager for IET-Academic Technology Services at rSmart client University of California-Davis--for a discussion of SCORM integration in Sakai.

And Nate Angell will join Rob Coyle, Instructional Designer and Sakai Functional Administrator at rSmart client Johns Hopkins University, for “Spaghetti Migration: The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly.” In this presentation, Coyle will share the challenges faced—and insights gained—during the school’s migration to Sakai. Not surprisingly, Coyle is a big fan of the conference. “It offers a rich variety of topics,” he explains, “from new teaching and learning methodologies to the application of the latest technologies.”   

Besides NYU, UC-Davis, and JHU, other rSmart clients will also be giving presentations this year:

• Marist College
  
• University of Wyoming
  
• West Liberty University
  

Ann Rose is Online Learning Specialist at West Liberty University; last year, just a month after the school adopted the CLE, she attended her first Sakai conference. This year, she’s giving two presentations on how she created training courses to prepare faculty for making the best use of Sakai. She's also conducting a workshop on using SCORM content. Speaking about last year’s conference, she says, “what I learned boosted my knowledge, my confidence and my energy. I came back ready to dive into Sakai.” Now, she adds, “I'm ready to share our successes as well as learn what's on the horizon."

Other presenters are also excited about the conference’s possibilities. Says presenter Brian Dashew, Instructional Designer for Academic Technology and eLearning at Marist College, “We're all sharing ideas with peers and colleagues who are part of this community. It's a true learning experience.” Fellow Marist presenter Dr. Reba-Anna Lee, Assistant Director of Academic Technology and eLearning at the school, echoes his sentiment. "There is such a high potential to take away new ideas," she says, adding, "you really feel and experience the community atmosphere at the Sakai conference."

For more information about the presentations at this year’s conference, click here. We look forward to seeing you in Denver!