Conference Season is Just Around the Corner

Now that spring has sprung, the Profweb team wanted to provide a preview of some of the activities and events that are being organized by, or for the college network.

Caroline Villeneuve, Profweb’s Coordinator, scanned through the programming for the AQPC Symposium. This must-attend event will take place from June 3rd to 5th at the Hotel Montagnais in Saguenay. This year’s theme is Energy and Synergy for Higher Education. You will find a wide array of inspiring workshops. Here are some interesting choices:

• 309  Move Over Constructivism, It’s Time For ”ConNETivism”
• 312  Nouvelles pratiques en formation à distance
• 811  Enseigner à la grandeur de la planète avec iTunes
• 401  Five Practices You Want in Your E-learning Design Strategy
• 206  Developing Expert Students in an Interactive Learning Environment
• 218  Social Science and Techno-Pedagogy: An Inspirational Tour ! (Led by the Profweb Team)
• 813  TIC et évaluation des apprentissages

Check out the full program (in French), or an abridged program that has been provided in English.
You can register now using the on-line form (only available in French).
Andréanne Turgeon, Project Coordinator, will be heading to the 83rd ACFAS Congress, which will be held at the Université du Québec à Rimouski from May 25th to 29th. The preliminary program for the conference, whose theme is Leaving the Beaten Path (Sortir des sentiers battus) is now available. Andréanne will be attending the conference on research-related issues. She discovered a workshop taking place on Wednesday, May 27th that will be of great interest to stakeholders in the college network: La recherche collégiale et son milieu: enracinement, déploiement et interdépendance. The workshop leaders are none-other than Lynn Lapostolle and Hélène Tardif from the ARC (Association pour la recherche au collégial).

Andréanne also wanted to share her shortlist of workshops:

• 107 : Abolir les frontières : les TIC pour soutenir l’interprofessionalisme, l’apprentissage et l’engagement des patients-usagers en santé et services sociaux (Tuesday, May 26th, 2015)
• 505 : La construction de l’expertise pédagogique en enseignement supérieur : la part de chacun (Thursday, May 28th, 2015)
• 510 : Entre autorégulation, motivation et persévérance : l’autonomie (Tuesday May 26th, 2015 and Wednesday, May 27th, 2015)
• 536 : Formation à distance en enseignement supérieur : l’enjeu de la formation des formateurs (Monday, May 25th, 2015)
• 620 : Innover en santé à l’ère du numérique : un jeu sérieux (Thursday, May 28th, 2015)

Guillaume Vachon, Web Integrator, Audrey Drolet, Trainee in Office Technologies, New Media and Publication Design, and Mathieu Brisson, Profweb’s Web Space Technician, have selected the 3rd iPad and Education Technology Summit taking place from April 30th to May 1st in Montreal.
The speakers and participants will engage in discussions about the iPad and other technologies that are making headway in classrooms around the world. These exchanges will help to address the following questions:

• How do we integrate technology in teaching?
• What are the most effective strategies?
• What are some of the challenges that arise, and how do we respond to them?
• What experiments worked particularly well?
• What are the most effective applications?

You can now register for the conference using the on-line registration form.

Marc-André Laflamme, Profweb Editor for the French Sector, is encouraging readers to attend the Ateliers pédagogiques de l’ACPQ. This year’s theme is A Thousand and One Learning Environments for Innovation. Marc-André will be co-presenting a workshop with Isabelle Laplante from the CDC (Centre de documentation collégiale). The workshop: Technopédagogie et Sciences de la nature: tour de pistes inspirantes will present some of the best Science resources from Profweb and the CDC’s collection.

Marc-André also recommends the workshop being run by our colleague Martin Parrot (Profweb) and Catherine Jobin (APOP). The full program is now on-line.

Martin Parrot, Profweb Editor for the French Sector, chose the Google Education on Airconference.

Much like other IT giants, Google is actively engaged in marketing to the education sector. A new initiative, Google Education on Air, will be taking place on May 8th and 9th 2015. This free on-line conference will include presentations from speakers and teachers that are already integrating Google tools into their teaching practice.

The first day of the event will be dedicated to innovation. The second day, which is largely facilitated by Google Teacher Academy certified Educators, will provide concrete examples and demonstrations of how to integrate tools into the classroom.

In an environment where more and more teachers are becoming familiar with tools such as Google Drive and Google Classroom, it will be interesting to learn more about where Google plans to go in the future, to attend presentations, and to hear the concerns of the conference participants. Martin will be writing up a summary of the highlights of the conference.

While we’re on the subject, you can whet your appetite for the conference by reading this Real Life Story from the French Side: Des projets étudiants stimulants avec Google Apps Éducation, written by our colleagues from Collège de Rosemont.

Ryan Moon, Editor of the English side of Profweb, selected the Annual Congress of the APAPI (Association professionnelle des Aides pédagogiques individuels). This congress gathers Academic Advisors and other college stakeholders throughout the province. The congress will be taking place from May 19th to 22nd in Rimouski. This year’s theme is Navigating Diversity (Naviguer dans la diversité), and offers a dozen sessions that treat a variety of topics in line with the support offered by Academic Advisors, and their contribution to student success. Ryan spoke with Sophie Poirier, an Academic Advisor at Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf:

At the Collège-de-Brébeuf, as in other colleges, we use the Suivi de la réussite module from Skytech, which unifies Omnivox and the Léa Learning Management System. The workshop that I will be leading will present the measures that Brébeuf put in place, some of the hurdles we overcame and some of the winning strategies for closely cooperating with Teachers. [Translation]

Sophie Poirier also informed Profweb that a conference is being organized by the Association Dialogue collèges/universités early in the Fall 2015 semester (September). The conference will be touching on MOOCs among other subjects.

The Profweb team will be on hand for many of these activities, reporting on the wide array of professional development opportunities. We wish you many fruitful learning experiences and exchanges with your college network colleagues during the conference season!