Call for Proposals

Conference Theme

Faculty, librarians, staff, and students are finding new ways of blending information and communication technologies to enhance learning. Across the state, teaching and learning communities are working on initiatives and projects that capitalize on connections built as campuses explore innovative ways to improve education.

Mix It Up! Creative Combinations for Learning in North Carolina focuses on initiatives and resources available for higher education in North Carolina. The conference will explore the variety of innovative blends of people, places, research, technology, policy, and approaches for teaching and learning.

This year's conference highlights resources and initiatives across the state that integrate different technologies, people, perspectives, ideas, processes, and organizational missions in innovative ways to:

achieve educational outcomes
overcome curricular challenges
foster rewarding learning experiences
prepare learners for future roles
use resources efficiently and effectively

Thinking in a systematic way about creative uses of technology is crucial. Specific areas to consider include:

People: Cultivating connections, collaborations and partnerships to facilitate the generation of ideas that transform and enhance the learning process.

Places: Considering how the creative use of real and virtual spaces can be conceptualized, developed, implemented and evaluated.

Research: Contributing to the scholarship of teaching and learning by discovering and evaluating ways that creative combinations can improve outcomes.

Technology: Assessing the effect of innovative combinations of technologies as well as the value of incorporating emerging technologies into the mix.

Policy: Understanding the impact of current policies and the need for policy change to accommodate new combinations of technologies and approaches that may span institutions and disciplines.

Approaches: Combining the many elements that contribute to the learning experience and refining the results to successfully implement innovative strategies.

Invitation to Submit

We actively solicit proposals that showcase TLT findings and work in progress from faculty, librarians, staff, and administrators who would like to share their knowledge and expertise with colleagues. Proposals about UNC collaborative work, including projects that involve educational, non-profit, commercial, or government organizations from outside UNC, are encouraged, as are submissions on other TLT-related topics.

Preference is given to proposals for sessions that:

emphasize collaborative approaches
provide useful information, skills, or ideas

promote effective and innovative practices

actively engage participants

are consistent with the conference theme

Ideas for presentations might include:

collaborative efforts to accomplish TLT initiatives
instructional resources, approaches, and outcomes
technological, pedagogical, library, and administrative policies and support issues
research, assessment, evaluation, and critical analyses to increase understanding of TLT practices
quality assurance, student retention, efficiency, and effectiveness of TLT efforts
current UNC initiatives, such as The University of North Carolina Online, partnerships among institutions (e.g. 2+2 activities, Learn and Earn), and Course Redesign

Conference participants include professionals from academic departments, libraries, and teaching and learning centers, as well as those involved with instructional design, distance education, instructional technology, faculty development, information technology, and more!

Proposal Submission Overview

All proposals must be submitted online using the proposal submission form by Monday, October 15, 2007. Notification of acceptance is planned for mid-December.

Session Types, described here, include panel discussions, roundtable discussions, hands-on workshops, formal presentations, and demonstrations. Session lengths are 90 minutes for workshops, and 30 or 50 minutes for other session types.

This year we are piloting the inclusion of sessions in which the presenter uses interactive and/or emerging technologies to engage the audience. For example, presenters might facilitate the creation of a mashup during the session, present in a 3D virtual world, or bring in a co-presenter through a synchronous learning management system.

We also strongly encourage sessions that actively engage participants in other innovative ways. Presenters might have participants post to a discussion board, read an article, listen to a podcast, or watch pre-recorded viewpoints prior to attending the session. The possibilities are endless!

If there are any requirements for the participants – bringing a laptop, reading materials in advance, participating in a prior online discussion – please make these requirements clear in the session description.

When submitting your proposal online, you will be required to select one of the Conference Tracks. These tracks, described here, help participants find sessions of interest to them.

The Collaborative Café is an online tool to assist you to identify and establish connections with others who have similar interests. We strongly encourage prospective presenters to collaborate in developing proposals by joining the Collaborative Café.

To use the Café, submit your presentation idea and indicate what kind of collaboration you would like. You can:

request panelists or identify co-presenters
refine and develop your presentation idea
gather handouts or other supplemental materials
ask for examples for specific content

You can also use the Café to look for requests that have been submitted by others as described above. While you are encouraged to continue to visit the Café, please keep in mind that Monday, October 15, 2007 is the deadline for all proposal submissions.

Conference Proceedings are planned for distribution after the conference, and will be available from the TLT Conference website. All participants are encouraged to submit their work for inclusion in the proceedings. Information on submitting content for the proceedings will be available on the conference website in the Spring.

Conference Registration
Conference registration will be available late Fall 2007. All presenters and co-presenters who attend must pay the appropriate registration fees.

Full conference: $175 ($255 non-UNC)
Any one day: $95 ($150 non-UNC)

Hotel Information
If you require hotel accommodations, we recommend that you make your reservation as soon as possible, but no later than February 18, 2008, when the room block reservation expires. Reservations can be made by calling 800-HILTONS (800-445-8667) or online at http://www.northraleigh.hilton.com/. To receive the conference rate ($92.00 single, $124.50 double), you must provide the group/convention code, which is TLT. If making your reservation online, please type this three letter code in the Group/Convention code box.

For More Information please contact Faith Dabney, TLTC Project and Communication Manager, at 252-353-2040 or fdabney@northcarolina.edu

Download a PDF version of the call for proposals

All proposals must be submitted online using the proposal submission form by Monday, October 15, 2007. Notification of acceptance is planned for mid-December.