[Spring Workshop 2014] Reflections

This post contributed by Leva Lee
It’s been week or so since the ETUG Spring workshop 2014, “20/20: Reflecting on the Past/Looking to the Future”, held on June 12th and 13th in Vancouver. We’re still busily gathering up feedback, resources and photos on the workshop to share with you.  Thanks again to Langara College for being such an outstanding host and to all our wonderful facilitators for helping to make the 20th anniversary for ETUG a wonderful and memorable learning event and celebration.
Jentery Sayers (a.k.a. “Dr. Maker”) from the University of Victoria kicked things off with a thought-provoking keynote “Make, But Not the Brand: DIY Making after Big Data.” It certainly got us discussing the relevance of making in education and had inspiring examples for us to consider in our post-secondary contexts. If you missed his talk, we have a video recording we will post soon, as well as, the colourful graphic recording done by the talented duo of Tracy Kelly, RRU and Jason Toal, SFU. It was a great way to start off our two days of “yacking”, hacking and learning, in what were some excellent sessions.

Resources have been shared by facilitators in the ETUG Let’s Talk space in SCoPE, as well as, reminisces on the ETUG 20th Anniversary Pinterest Board and #etug tweets. If you get a chance, check these out.

For me, the highlight this year was the return of the Ed Tech Jeopardy Game, hosted by the charismatic Paul Stacey, of Creative Commons. The first time we tried this was at ETUG’s 15th Anniversary when we played the game with clickers. It was a fun time, bringing out the most competitive and most rockus in our bunch. Yes, it was game show hysterics at The River Rock.
 
Topping it all off as icing on the proverbial cake (in this case, the ETUG cake), we were treated to a playful plenary finale and were asked to think on issues from our sessions and explore them in some improv scenarios with The Players.
Sarah Louise Turner, SFU and The Players (Janis McKenzie, Jason Toal, and Frederik Kruger-Ross, SFU; Judy Chan and Isabeau Iqbal, UBC) brilliantly facilitated us in our collective and creative summary of workshop takeaways. At our individual tables groups, we were given 5 minutes to compose  a line of lyrics expressing a takeaway idea. Here is what we made! To be sung to the tune of “Take me out to the  Ballgame” :

 
Take me out to ETUG
Take me out to ETUG
Make me open to share
Show me your app– and I’ll show you mine
Wifi aside we all want to come back
‘Cause it’s reboot, reboot for the Moodle
If there’s no DJ, it’s a shame
For it’s one, two, three badges you’re done
At the old ETUG.
Take me out to ETUG
Take me out of LMS
Hack me some WordPress, crash the LMS
Where will be in 20-3-4?
‘Cause it’s woot, woot, woot for the Jeopardy teams
Yes, Tech hates us—that’s how life goes
For it’s CC BY NC ND and you’re out
At the ED TECH GAME!
Happy 20th ETUG!  Happy summer all! Looking forward to seeing you at future ETUG events.

Photo credits: Dennis Yip, JIBC and Heidi Mede, Langara College.