The Future of E-Learning

Venue: Ashfield House, York College, Tadcaster Road, York (See www.yorkcollege.ac.uk/about/maps.htm)

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Speakers:
Marcus Green: who has been working in IT since 1987 specialising in programming and databases and with the Java programming language since 1997. (A search of Google on the terms java programmer usually returns his web site as the first or second ranked result (out of 40 million returned)). Marcus has been using Moodle and Blackboard since 2003, working as a Lecturer at York College of FE between 2003 and 2006, and in the summer of 2006 he went to visit Moodle HQ in Perth, Australia where the chief Moodle developer Martin Dougiamas spent a large part of a day talking about the product, its development and planned future.

Gustav Delius: From the Department of Mathematics at the University of York and a keen user of Moodle. Gustav is responsible for introducing AiM at the Department of Mathematics at the University of York. As part of that project they are developing an interface between Moodle and AiM. (AiM is a system for computer-aided learning and assessment in mathematics.)

Martin Harmer: Information Learning Technologies Manager at York College, responsible for supporting Blackboard amongst many other things.

E-Learning is a hot topic throughout the Education Sector and Higher Education (HE) providers are taking it very seriously. With speakers from both the HE and Further Education (FE) sectors, we aim to discuss the pros and cons of E-learning and take a look at two popular solutions available and in widespread use at the moment – Moodle and Blackboard.