19 April 2021, 19:32

Hi everyone.

This is an announcement from the AAEEBL Annual Meeting organising team. Quick facts:

• Call for proposal due: 23 April 2021
• Annual meeting: 20-22 July 2021
• Online

Cheers

Kristina

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The COVID-19 pandemic has illuminated the inherent inequities in higher education globally.  As a result, many institutions and educators are working to address existing disparities but there is much work to be done.  The longstanding use of ePortfolios has demonstrated the value of having learners document and reflect on their learning to share their stories of transformative learning experiences.  Now, we have an opportunity to further leverage ePortfolio research and practice to address existing inequities and inequalities.

The 2021 Annual Meeting for the Association for Authentic Experiential Evidence-Based Learning (AAEEBL) aims to explore how we, as educators, address learner identities, equity, and belonging in higher education with particular emphasis on three areas:

1. the ways that ePortfolios can surface learner identities to improve and enhance higher education;
2. the design and inclusion of ePortfolios together with other high-impact pedagogies in large and small-scale ePortfolio implementations to address equity and access; and
3. the interrelationships among technology, practice, and ethical considerations to foster belonging.

This virtual convening has been reimagined to take place over the course of three days with events scheduled to accommodate busy schedules and global time zones. In addition, we invite participants to co-design the meeting with us by actively engaging in unconference and hackathon activities aimed at strengthening the ePortfolio community and co-authoring resources that will be accessible and disseminated after the conference. In other words, following Dr. Ruben Puentedura’s SAMR model, we are hoping to redefine and transform our annual meeting into an event that provides for many of the things we are missing from our traditional in-person conferences -- meaningful connections with colleagues, useful and practical takeaways, and new research directions, pedagogical practices, and questions to ponder!

Call for proposals (Deadline extended to: April 23, 2021): You are invited to propose a topic and/or indicate your interest in participating in any or all of the following: 

1. Conversation sessions are 1-hour interactive conference presentations. Conversation leaders will  a) guide both synchronous and asynchronous participants as they contribute ideas, questions, solutions and more; and b) pull those ideas together into a graphical takeaway summary.
2. Propose an unconference topic to facilitate on your own or with colleagues and/or; 2) participate by reviewing the list of proposed unconference topics generated via our Call for Participation and then add yourself to any that interest you. 
3. The hackathons will take place in a series of 2 hour work sprints where participants will collectively co-create new or revise the following existing AAEEBL resources: 1) The AAEEBL Field Guide (add new topics or revise existing ones); 2) Hack your Professional Online Presence (POP!) – create or update your ePortfolio and/or LinkedIn Profile; 3) Hack the ePortfolio platform decision-making / adoption / selection process. Join as many hacks as you can or want!

Registration will open in May and more information will be available on the AAEEBL website.

Please spread the word in your communities and networks. Feel free to contact us with any questions at [email protected].

We look forward to seeing you in July.