"We're back" -- SIDLIT Conference Goes Fully Hybrid Again!

We are back! SIDLIT 2023 is the first SIDLIT conference to be held at a solid brick-and-mortar setting since SIDLIT 2019 at Hays, Kansas. How exciting for this summer's event -- "Getting Together, Staying Together, Building the Future Together" -- to have kicked off with a spectacular afternoon of workshops hosted by KSU-Olathe at their Innovation campus just five minutes' drive from the junction of Highway 10 and Highway 7. The facilities at KSU-Olathe are just plain sharp. The technology is elegant and the session spaces are very comfortable.?

I can only report on the workshop that I attended, "Don't Make the Blind Kid Play Dodgeball: Building Game Events for All," by Daniel Ireton and Angie Brunk, experts at K-State-Manhattan in game design and human factors. The other three workshops on opening day at SIDLIT 2023 were: "Creative Pedagogical Sequencing for Course Design," by Dr. Greg Rose, IT training specialist at KUMC; "An Adaptive Learning Exploration," by Dr. Deborah Taylor, an expert in online learning and student success at Johnson County Community College, the University of Kansas, and the Online Learning Consortium; and "Designing Augmented Reality for Learning with Adobe's Aero (Beta) App: A Sparse End-to-End Walk-through," by Dr. Shalin Hai-Jew, an instructional designer at Kansas State University. This line-up of four sessions from day one of SIDLIT 2023 is unparalleled anywhere in the world at this moment in educational technology.

In the three-hour workshop on accessibility in game design, there was a nice balance of seven face-to-face attendees and nine virtual attendees, with everyone participating in a "Werewolf" scenario and learning key aspects of game-playing dynamics to consider when developing or adapting games to make these experiences available for a diverse array of individuals, with an awareness of equity concerns related to gender and disability.?

There was nice interplay between participants in the session room and those connecting via Zoom and chat. After addressing all questions from both sides of this hybrid venue, and divulging the identity of the secret "werewolf" from among all the players, or "villagers," Professors Brunk and Ireton, who are currently preparing and researching ahead of other national and international appearances, led an informal discussion of a number of unusual and interesting board games displayed on five or six long tables, and then demonstrated a surprisingly engaging, yet aggravating, card game called FLUX, where rules and goals continually shift unexpectedly, thwarting nearly any effort by players to develop coherent winning strategies.?

Time seemed to flow quickly during these 180 minutes of workshop activites, and most remarkable were the deep and lively discussions facilitated by these two masterful session leaders.

Thursday and Friday there will be concurrent hourly sessions all morning and all afternoon, both days, hosted at Johnson County Community College. Thursday afternoon features a panel discussion, "Navigating the Intersection of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA)," with Ed Lovitt, Director of Ed Tech and Distance Learning at JCCC; Scott Finkeldei, Director of Academic and Student Technology Services at K-State; Cheryl Zelle, doctoral candidate at K-State and Colleague-to-Colleague Chair; Annie Els, M.Ed., Learning Experience Designer at Indiana Wesleyan University; John Jones, Executive Director of the Media Resources Center at Wichita State University; Rob Gibson, Dean of Academic Technology and Director of Instructional Design at WSU Tech; and Dr. Rana Johnson, K-State's inaugural Vice President for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging.

Friday afternoon features the Keynote, "Embracing the Digital Turn: A New Era of Quality, Equity, and Care in Online and Blended Learning," by Dr. Angela Gunder, Chief Academic Officer at the Online Learning Consortium. The detailed conference schedule is online at https://colleague2colleague.org/2023-detailed-conference-schedule/ . All presentations, workshops, and the panel and keynote sessions are being recorded and archived by Colleague-to-Colleague (C2C) as a service to the profession.

Yes, the SIDLIT in-person and blended annual conference is back! What a fantastic celebration of the challenges and opportunities facing education technology professionals, is being hosted on the KSU-Olathe and Johnson County Community College campuses in Kansas City this week!