ISU Professor Part of Symposium in China
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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowIndiana State University professor Feng-Qi Lai is helping organize an education analytics event later this year in China. The AECT-LKAOE 2015 Summer International Research Symposium will feature more than a dozen presenters from schools in the Unites States, China and the United Kingdom. January 5, 2015
News Release
TERRE HAUTE, Ind. – Indiana State University is partnering with Association for Educational Communications and Technology to organize the AECT-LKAOE 2015 Summer International Research Symposium in Shanghai, China.
The symposium, June 17-19, will be hosted at East China Normal University to discuss learning and knowledge analytics in open education with university and other school faculty and students across the globe.
“It will be truly international with scholars in educational technology from around the world presenting at the symposium,” said Dr. Feng-Qi Lai, Indiana State professor in the department of curriculum, instruction and media technology as the symposium's planner and general chairwoman. “When people leave the symposium, they will get a great amount of knowledge about educational technology. It will help all attendees in developing their own programs at their institutions and guide them in the direction of where the field of educational technology is headed.”
Proposals have been submitted from people in the educational technology around the world, including 11 of Lai's doctoral students at Indiana State: Donna Crawford, Brian Zuel, Haisong Ye, Xiaoxiao Feng, Jean Trusedell, Lijun Cui, Lisa Hughes, Bradley Countermine, Renee Bauer, Lei Zhang, and YeonHee Chae.
Lai will also serve as a special session speaker, along with Phillip Harris, Association for Educational Communications and Technology; Richard Cornell, University of Central Florida; and Youqun Ren, East China Normal University.
Keynote speakers will include: David Wiley, Brigham Young University; Curtis Bonk, Indiana University; Jan Herrington, Murdoch University; and John Traxler, University of Wolverhampton.
Invited speakers will be: Michael Spector, University of North Texas; Yanyan Li, Beijing Normal University; Xiaoqing Gu, East China Normal University; Vanessa Dennen, Florida State University; Jianli Jiao, South China Normal University; Marcus Childress, Baker University; Ana Donaldson, Walden University; Stephen Harmon, Georgia State University; Yan Li, Zhejiang University; Robert Branch, University of Georgia; Wilhelmina Savenye, Arizona State University; Robert A. Reiser, Florida State University; Kaili Wang, Shenyang Normal University; M. David Merrill, Utah State University; and Ke Zhang, Wayne State University.
Lai, who is one of the founders and a former president of the Society of International Chinese in Educational Technology (SICET), spent a decade doing service for AECT – the most prestigious academic organization in the educational technology field.
In 2004, SICET became an affiliated organization of AECT and in 2015 started its first international conference as an AECT division in the U.S., where it has been held every year.
“All of the AECT conferences and symposiums had happened inside the United States, but there was a push to make it a truly international conference by hosting it in another country so the symposium was held in Taiwan in 2013,” Lai said. “I was asked if I could get a university to host the symposium in 2015 in China. I came to the U.S. from China, I was a born and grew up in Shanghai and for 10 years was a professor at the university in Shanghai, where I have former students working in various educational areas.”
Lai spoke to officials at East China Normal University about the prospect of hosting the symposium, which she said they found impressive because AECT is well-known in China.
“If a university can host a conference for AECT, it enhances the university's name,” Lai said.
She sent AECT a formal proposal, including a theme, rational and keynote speakers, and was reward for her work when AECT's executive director and the board accepted her proposal and made the symposium a partnership with Indiana State and President Dan Bradley was invited as one of the honorary chairperson.
“Because our students are the most important people to have in academic activities, I also encouraged our students to submit proposals and guided them in how they needed to do research for the presentation proposal,” Lai said.
While there's still work to be completed before the event, Lai's glad to see everything coming together.
“I'm happy when I think about it because I believe it is worth my time and effort,” she said. “I look at this as my contribution to global education, especially in the educational technology field.”
Additional information and registration are available at http://aect.org/chinasymposium.
Source: Indiana State University