What to expect in Toowoomba
As I sit here at my desk listening to the howling wind and rain I am reminded that Queensland does not always live up to her name of “The Sunshine State". This is the view today from our office window looking over to Alison Dickson Theatre, the main venue for our conference in just a few weeks.
This post was prompted by conversations at the recent ASCILITE Spring into Excellence Research School (an exhilarating and rewarding few days which I would highly recommend). Attendees wanted to know more about Toowoomba and what to expect while they are at the conference.
So here are a few facts and figures to help answer that question.
Toowoomba (The Garden City) sits on top of the Great Dividing Range at an altitude of 691m. With a population of approximately 115,000, we are the largest inland non-capital city in Australia.
In December we have almost 14 hours of daylight, with sunrise around 4.50am and sunset around 6.30pm. We suggest you make the most of this with an early morning stroll through one of our numerous parks and gardens or a leisurely breakfast catch up with friends new and old.
Our weather is variable so we suggest you bring layers and raincoat. While the average temperature in December is 29OC, the current long term forecast on one site is for some thunderstorms for the week of the conference. All rooms at USQ are air conditioned, which means it can be considerably cooler inside than out so a light cardigan or jacket is suggested.
Our campus is 6.5 km from the CBD so we highly recommend using the free shuttle bus being offered for delegates from the three conference hotels. More information on this will be posted closer to the conference start. Public transport consists of buses only with several routes passing by the university and services approximately every half hour. More information on travel.
If flying in to Toowoomba we recommend you request a window seat so you can view the rich tapestry of farmland as you descend into Toowoomba.
What you won’t see much of around Toowoomba is running water – there are no rivers in our area and the nearest lakes are about half an hour drive. Our tap water has just been announced as tastiest in Australia, so bring a refillable bottle with you!
What we can guarantee for this year’s ASCILITE conference is a friendly welcome, good times, good company, stimulating presentations and opportunities for networking. We look forward to welcoming you.
Where to stay in Toowoomba
So you’re coming to ASCILITE 2017! Have you found somewhere to stay?
Toowoomba and its surroundings won't disappoint with plenty of accommodation options – motels, apartments, bed and breakfasts and caravan parks.
For starters, the conference committee has secured discounted accommodation rates at Toowoomba Central Plaza Apartments, The City Golf Club Motel and the Potter’s Motel. See the accommodation page for pricing and room facilities. Catch the complimentary bus service from these accommodation options for hassle free travel to the conference venue daily.
Accommodation with old world charm
For many, a visit to Toowoomba is not complete without a stay in one of the impressive, grand old homes.
Top of the traveller’s list in 2016 (TripAdvisor) was Wanulla, a superb bed and breakfast in the heritage Caledonian Estate. Wanulla provides guests with an extra level of comfort in an elegant setting. Guests can enjoy snuggling up in large ensuited bedrooms, as well as relaxing in the extensive lounge and dining room furnished with classic antique pieces. Wanulla is only a few minutes walk from Toowoomba’s CBD, Queen’s Park with its magnificent gardens, and numerous nearby cafes.
Another all-time favourite is Vacy Hall, the only heritage-listed accommodation in Toowoomba’s quiet inner city. This 12 roomed, classically decorated guesthouse boasts large luxury rooms as well as more modest quarters. Vacy Hall is set on over an acre of landscaped gardens with large 140 year old trees. If a country style breakfast is on your to-do list, you can have it served to your room or on the colonial verandah. TripAdvisor describes Vacy Hall as “Tranquility, peace with history”.
Banksia Cottage may fit your needs perfectly if bringing your family or coming to the conference as a group. Rented as an entire cottage, you will have privacy and freedom. This accommodation is even pet friendly. Built in 1898, Banksia Cottage combines historic charm with modern day comforts and is located in tree-lined Norwood Street on the doorstep of the City.
If you are interested in immersing yourself in history then perhaps check out Augusta’s Cottage located in historic Mort Estate. This conveniently located cottage with its high ceilings and double brick walls nestled in beautiful gardens, is perfect for couples, families or small groups.
Having a car will allow you to stay a little further afield to experience a truly unique Australian experience. Rudd’s historic pub at Nobby, winner of Queensland and Australian Hotel’s Association Best Pub Style Accommodation Awards can provide just that. For something totally different, choose a queen room with a shower under a rain water tank or maybe the family room with an old fashioned claw foot bath to relax in. A complimentary traditional Australian country breakfast completes the package.
Apartments
Renting a whole apartment instead of hotel room, may sound extravagant but I think you will be pleasantly surprised how cost effective furnished apartments can be in Toowoomba. Coupled with the extra space, is the added bonus of being able to cook and eat just like at home, if desired. Just a few of your options are…
Laguna: stylish, comfortable, two bedroom contemporary apartments located close to Toowoomba’s CBD, and within walking distance to many of the city’s glorious gardens, restaurants and the Empire Theatre. Laguna is a perfect choice for business and leisure trips. Apartments include fully equipped kitchens and laundry facilities. Come home from a day at the conference and relax on the balcony taking in the views of the city.
Athena provides the choice of premium two or three bedroom apartments, or the popular studio suite. All apartments are equipped with self-contained kitchens in an open plan living design. But, there is so much more to Athena – a 24 hour gym, restaurant, pool, bar and games as well as access to the shuttle from the Toowoomba Wellcamp airport. Whether your trip is purely to attend ASCILITE or combine a family holiday in Toowoomba, Athena will provide a luxurious stay. Athena is a “sensational stay” (TripAdvisor).
21 On Hursley: luxury, spacious quiet one or two bedroom ensuited apartment accommodation just 10 minutes by car from the University. Enjoy a fully equipped kitchen with dishwasher, microwave and full size fridge as well as modern furnishings, spa baths, lock up garage and Foxtel. These apartments won’t disappoint – quality abounds from the towels to the kitchen equipment. HotelsCombined awarded 21 On Hursley, the 2017 Recognition of Excellence award while guests rate the apartments 9.9.
Motels
When it comes to motels, Toowoomba caters for all budgets and tastes with a plethora of clean, comfortable and quiet motels within easy commute of the conference venue and all that is on offer in the city.
Comfort Inn Glenfield ticks the boxes if you looking for a comfortable, economical stay located close to the University, shopping centre and eateries.
Applegum Inn, situated in a beautiful east Toowoomba tree lined street close to Queen’s Park and the Empire theatre is another economical option offering easy access with all units on the ground floor and undercover parking. Choose to have breakfast and dinner delivered to your room or sample the food on offer at the onsite restaurant. Guest laundry facilities complete the package.
Best Western Plus Ambassador on Ruthven Motor Inn is hard to beat as a quality, newly renovated eco-friendly motel. Winner of TripAdvisor’s Certificate of Excellence awards in 2014, 2015 and 2016, this 4 star motel provides clean, comfortable rooms for couples, singles, families and groups, as well as spa suites. For stress free dining try Seasons, the licensed onsite restaurant and wine bar.
Platinum International is an exclusive, stylish 4 star accommodation located in a perfect location for conference delegates. Consecutive winner of TripAdvisor’s Certificate of Excellence awards and renown for immaculate presentation with up to date furnishings and coverings, quiet rooms, kitchenettes, friendly, professional staff and a quality buffet breakfast. For a fine dining experience, onsite Images Restaurant and Lounge Bar should be on your ‘must try’ list while in town.
Caravan park
The BIG4 Toowoomba Garden City Holiday Park is a perfect base for the ASCILITE conference being easy walking distance from a great little shopping centre, and just over 2 kilometres from USQ. The park has a wide selection of fully self-contained modern cabin accommodation to suit all budgets and needs, as well as catering for wide range of caravans, motorhomes and campervans.
Airbnb
Toowoomba has many Airbnb properties, from private rooms to guest houses to entire properties. Check out the local Superhosts or see the whole range of properties on offer in Toowoomba.
Other options
For other accommodation options, check out these websites:
Check out the final conference program
Guess what!
The final program for ASCILITE 2017 is now live.
We are excited to bring you a diverse program with a range of different session types, from traditional concise and full papers to experimental sessions, lightning talks, and open fishbowls. We're bringing you keynotes from the higher education sector and beyond, to ignite discussion on big ideas and issues that will impact our sector in the very near future. You'll also have the opportunity to check out more than 20 digital posters. The program has been curated to create an engaging experience for delegates. You won't be sitting in a lecture theatre for three days straight! Instead, the program will give you plenty of opportunities to participate.
And there's more in store! Over the next few weeks, we'll announce details of the social events, we'll launch the conference app, and we'll give you all the details about the conference gamification experience.
But you've only got just under a week to take advantage of the early bird registration rate. So don't delay! Check out the program now, then head straight to the registration page to secure your spot at the conference.
Privacy, trust, student data and the university: An exploratory panel
We wanted to make sure the ASCILITE 2017 program hit on some of the key issues for the sector right now.
And that's why we're bringing you what we anticipate will be a thought-provoking, and sometimes challenging, panel discussion on privacy, trust, student data, and the university.
It's also why we decided that this session needs to be available to all in the higher education. This session will be open and free for all to attend online.
Applications such as Facebook, Gmail, Twitter, and iTunes offer users convenience, connection, and content for no perceived upfront cost, but the currency of digital citizenship is privacy. Data collection, use, and resale by global companies reinforces the perception of private information as a commodity, with ethical, legal, and technological consequences largely unexplored.
As higher education institutions increasingly collect and use data, questions arise over student privacy and the impact on a relationship of trust. This is exacerbated by the use of third-party (and often commercial) products in the curriculum; from publisher texts and online resources that require unique student log-in, to test banks that track individual student performance, to the integration of services like Google+ and Facebook into learning and teaching activities. Furthermore, questions arise when companies dealing with student data are purchased by commercial interests and the data is seen as ‘goods and chattels’ in the company sale.
This panel seeks to explore emerging ethical, legal, educational, and technological issues surrounding the collection and use of student data by universities, and the impact these strategies have on student trust and privacy.
We've put together a stellar panel to discuss this important topic. We wanted to include multiple perspectives, including student and vendor perspectives. You'll hear from
- Barney Dalgarno (facilitator), Director of Learning Online at Charles Sturt University
- Jasmine Thomas, Sessional Academic, School of Law and Justice, University of Southern Queensland
- Kirsty Kitto, Senior Lecturer, Connected Intelligence Centre, University of Technology Sydney
- Kate Young, Student, Bachelor of Health (Biomedical Science Major), University of Southern Queensland
- Allan Christie, Vice President eLearning, Blackboard
Catch this session
Tuesday 5 December, 1.30pm – 3pm
Room H102 Allison Dickson Lecture Theatre and live streamed via Zoom
You can participate in the discussion via Twitter. Tweet your questions during the session with the conference hashtag #ascilite17 and the committee will pose them to the panel.
For those not able to attend the seminar, you can follow along via Twitter using the conference hashtag #ascilite17.
More information, including information about panellists.
Early birds and worms
Public Domain image from www.pixabay.com
They do say early bird catches the worms! If you register before 30 October 2017, you can still catch the reduced fees.
Catching the early bird rate will ensure you don't miss out on any of our three fantastic keynotes.
Professor James Arvanitakis will tackle the persistent state of 'getting it wrong' that universities inhabit; and the tension between pedagogy and technology. Can there peaceful co-existence between the two?
Marita Cheng will provide insight to a robotics-driven future. This is not the science fiction of I, Robot, but a looming reality. Responses from higher education will be critical, and Marita explores how to create future-ready graduates.
Amber Case will look at the way the world is made of information that competes for our attention. She'll tackle questions like:
- How does it affect us as individuals?
- Does it help us learn or does it get in the way?
- What are the implications for the way we learn and teach in tertiary education?
- How does technology help us engage with community?
What do you think? Join your flock of peers at ASCILITE 2017, 4 – 6 December 2017 on the University of Southern Queensland's Toowoomba Campus.
Register now! Early bird closes 30 October 2017 so you've only got one week to go!
Extend your ASCILITE 2017 experience with post conference workshops
We've got three exciting post conference workshops lined up to help you extend your ASCILITE 2017 experience!
What can bonsai tells us about authentic learning with educational technology? Roger Edmonds will unlock this mystery in the workshop It’s Pedagogy GO with location-based mobile learning games. In this interactive workshop we will take you through all the steps of designing and developing a location-based mobile learning game using an online platform which is made for anyone to use to create and explore stories at locations of their choosing.
Interested in shaking up the way you run exams? Mathew Hillier, Andrew Fluck and Martin Coleman will present an interactive workshop called Transforming exams – hands on with the technology. This workshop will explore the rationale behind the OLT e-Exam system for high stakes exams, however, the majority of the session will be spent getting hands-on with the technology! This is a free workshops sponsored by the Australian Government Department of Education and Training funded project Transforming Exams (Grant ID 15-4747).
If Mobile virtual reality is more your thing, spend the day with Thomas Cochrane and David Sinfield. Their workshop will explore user generated mobile 360 video production and integration into interactive virtual reality environments for education. You'll experience using a low-cost, BYOD, rapid prototyping framework to create and share their own immersive mobile VR scenarios. The workshop will explore the unique affordances of mobile devices for enabling participant-generated content and experiences using mobile VR.
Find out more about all three workshops.
Please note: separate registration is required for the workshops. They are not included in your conference registration. Registration information is available on the Workshops page.
Announcing our third keynote: Amber Case
We are extremely excited to announce our third keynote speaker for the conference, Amber Case.
Amber is a fellow at Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society and a visiting researcher at the MIT Center for Civic Media. She studies the interaction between humans and computers and how our relationship with information is changing the way cultures think, act, and understand their worlds. She is the author of Calm Technology: Designing for the Next Generation of Devices, An Illustrated Dictionary of Cyborg Anthropology and the recently published book Designing Products with Sound: Principles and Patterns for Mixed Environments.
Amber is a sought after speaker and her TED Talk We are all cyborgs now has been viewed almost 1.5 million times.
Amber will speak on the Internet of Things, technology and our future:
Our world is made of information that competes for our attention. How does it affect us as individuals? Does it help us learn or does it get in the way? What are the implications for the way we learn and teach in tertiary education? How does technology help us engage with community? The world is no longer dominated by desktop computers. We are mobile and more organic. We need an equivalent computing and design framework to ensure that technology fits into our lives and empowers us. We need to live alongside it instead of being controlled by it. To find some direction, we can look to concepts of Calm Technology. The terms calm computing and calm technology were coined in 1995 by PARC Researchers Mark Weiser and John Seely Brown in reaction to the increasing complexities that information technologies were creating. Calm technology describes a state of technological maturity where a user’s primary task is not computing, but being human. The idea behind Calm Technology is to have smarter people, not things. Technology shouldn’t require all of our attention, just some of it, and only when necessary. How can our devices take advantage of location, proximity and haptics to help improve our lives instead of getting in the way? How can designers can make apps “ambient” while respecting privacy and security? This talk will cover how to use principles of Calm Technology to design the next generation of connected devices. We’ll look at notification styles, compressing information into other senses, and designing for the least amount of cognitive overhead. We'll also look at the rise of Artificial Intelligence, and at future considerations of ethics and automation.
Find out more about Amber on her website and follow her on Twitter (@case0rganic).
Read more about all of our fabulous keynotes.
Come star gazing with us at ASCILITE!
We've been working hard to create a social program that introduces you to the very best of Toowoomba and USQ.
We are excited to announce the first of our social events - an evening of star gazing with the USQ Astronomy Team!
We invite you and your family to join us on Monday 4 December, following the welcome reception, and become amateur astronomers for the evening.
Internationally-renowned astrobiologist and astronomer Associate Professor Jonti Horner and the Astronomy Outreach Team from the University of Southern Queensland will take you on a cosmic journey of our Solar system and beyond.
Jonti will share his knowledge of the birth of the solar system to modern day astronomical events, a tale of violence and destruction, featuring craters, comets, and even the death of the dinosaurs!
The USQ Astronomy Team will then help you to find some of the famous constellations in the night sky using both naked eye observation and telescopes, and answer any questions you might have about astronomy and our place in the Universe.
The event is open to all ASCILITE delegates and their families.
Registration is free but places are limited to 50 people, so get in quick!
Spring’s here, and so is ASCILITE 2017 early bird registration
Public Domain image sourced from www.pixabay.com
Spring is here - at least for us down under in Australia! It's a time for renewal and the dreaded 'spring cleaning'. You might have started on your house or yard, but have you done a 'spring clean' of your professional learning closet yet?
Have you hung up the new curtains of learning and knowledge? Have you considered a new dietary requirement for your minds, hearts and/or for actions?
Don’t forget to make ASCILITE 2017 a part of your learning rejuvenation this spring! This year’s conference will be held at the University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, Queensland - the Garden City of Australia.
We have exciting keynote speakers lined up to nourish your mind and whet your appetite each morning, as you move on to the buffet of each stream. Not only do we have interesting and thought provoking papers, you will also get to connect with other like-minded peers and colleagues and network at a number of social events.
In the spirit of change, and renewal, perhaps it is time to consider registration to ASCILITE 2017 and look for fresh perspectives to fold into your practice.
Remember that the early bird registration offer only lasts for just under two weeks (until 23 October)!
Our draft program is now live!
The count down until 4 December continues continues and the ASCILITE 2017 Organising Committee have been hard at work curating a diverse program of conference sessions and events.
We are pleased to announce that the draft program is now available! And it is a doozy!
The presentation formats include the traditional full and concise papers, along with digital posters, debates, lightning talks, open fishbowls and experimental sessions under the key theme of Me, Us, and IT.
As you’d imagine, presentations cover a wide range of topics include virtual learning environments, blended learning, flipped classrooms, learning analytics, open education practices, AR and VR. You can also meet the editors of Australasian Journal of Educational Technology (AJET), which is ASCILITE’s journal. You can also bring along a journal article or idea of an article and have a speed editing session with one of the AJET editors.
We also have a range of great social events in store for you. The draft program offers a bit of a teaser, and we'll be a announcing all the events over the next few weeks.
Come up and breathe the crisp mountain air, meet up with colleagues, meet new people to add to your network, and enjoy some great presentations.
Come one, come all! We look forward to seeing you at ASCILITE 2017 at the University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba campus, 4 – 6 December 2017.
View the draft program now! [PDF]
