DEANZ conference 2012 promises focus on key education themes

23 November 2011

DEANZ conference 2012 promises focus on key education themes

The Distance Education Association of New Zealand (DEANZ) is calling for submissions to present at their bi-annual conference ‘Shift Happens – Resilience, Relevance and Reform’.

To be held in Wellington, 11-13 April 2012, the DEANZ conference is New Zealand’s premier event for leaders and practitioners involved in open, flexible and distance learning.

“The choice of the conference theme reflects the context distance educators must practice in”, says Mark Nichols, DEANZ Executive member and Open Polytechnic Executive Director of Faculty.

“The tragedy of the Christchurch earthquakes and how that affected tertiary education providers and their students, the call for accountability through education performance indicators, the need to embrace the future and other changes all point to the importance of a conference considering resilience, relevance and reform in and through distance education.”

A line-up of leading international and national speakers will be presenting at the event including Dr Diana Oblinger (EDUCAUSE), Professor Paul Bacsich (Matic Media Ltd), Professor Kwok-Wing Lai (University of Otago), and Ken Kay (EdLeader21).

“The speakers will appeal to all sectors involved in distance education – secondary and tertiary providers and industry practitioners. Networking with others involved in distance education, from instructional design and management right through to online and distance teaching, is also a prime focus of the conference,” says Mr Nichols.

DEANZ are also calling for non-refereed papers, posters, workshops and refereed papers to present at the conference and papers accepted for the refereed stream will be published in a special issue of the DEANZ Journal in 2012 immediately after the conference.

Calls for presentations close 16 December 2011.

To find out more about the conference and how to apply, please visit the DEANZ website: http://tinyurl.com/deanz2012.

The event is proudly sponsored by Open Polytechnic (platinum), Ako Aotearoa (gold), and Massey University, Otago Polytechnic and Southern Institute of Technology (bronze).

ENDS