I’m absolutely thrilled to announce that VCU’s Academic Learning Transformation Festival (ALTfest) is coming back to a theater near you! By all accounts, the inaugural ALTfest last year was a rousing success. For this year, we’ve planned an even bigger and better professional learning event. ((NOTE: I very specifically didn’t use the word “conference.” There will be lots of conferring at ALTfest, but this isn’t your grandmother’s conference…))
Here’s a sizzle reel of last year’s event compiled by our very own Max Schlickenmeyer:
LIKE YOU DON’T WANT TO BE A PART OF THAT!!!
Some highlights for this year’s ALTfest:
- The keynote address will be delivered by Dr. Mark Sample from Davidson College. In my mind, few people are doing the work of learning transformation like Mark is.
- We have four “Transformers-in-Residence” who are educator/innovators who will serve as energy inputs throughout the event and who will be conducting half-day workshops on the first day of ALTfest. I’m overjoyed to have Laura Gibbs, Jesse Stommel, Lee Skallerup and Andrew Ilnicki serving as our TIRs.
- Our makerspace will be expanded. Last year, the space was absolutely amazing and bursting with energy, so we found a bigger space to allow for more makers and making.
- Our very own Molly Ransone will be offering a FULL DAY workshop on video production and editing. Want to make media for your courses or for your own scholarly work? Molly can help you make it real.
- ALTfest kicks off with a quick, half-day unconference called ALTCamp.
- We’ll have our own WordCamp, an unconference within the conference; an entire track of sessions/conversations/workshops will be devoted to integrating WordPress into higher education. This aspect of ALTfest will be organized by our own WordPress guru, Tom Woodward.
- We’ll have Ignite!-style talks.
- We’ll have food trucks.
And, at the heart of the learning event are the stories of transformation. If you’ve got a story of learning transformation to tell, submit a proposal to tell your story in a compelling way.
It goes on and on…
Propose to tell your story of transformation! Propose an Ignite!-sytle talk! Join us! It’s going to be GREAT!
