DISCO 2012 was the most educational and enjoyable conference I have attended in my career. Not only were the presentations fascinating and workshops well planned, but there were many opportunities to share knowledge with colleagues from around the world. I look forward to attending DISCO 2013.
"The DisCo 2010 was an enriching and enlightening forum, where experts in academia and higher education crossed paths. The diversification across disciplines enabled cross pollination of ideas and the culmination of new strategies to go forward. The conference in Pilsen was well organised and allowed a platform for expression and robust discussion on a range of topics. The delegates enjoyed practical demonstration and hands-on application of virtual communities including Second Life and 3-Dimensional classrooms, which demonstrated the potential of personal and dynamic interactivity between lecturer and student. Delegates were also treated to a fun-filled social as an introduction and welcome to the conference. This catalysed networking and engagements amongst the delegates.
Taking part in theDisCo 2010 was not only a very pleasant and memorable personal experience, more importantly it had a strong professional impact on participants as new trends in distance education were shown, results of various studies and projects presented as well as some astonishing possibilities of modern technologies to be used as an educational tool were demonstrated.
Maryanne Maisano from the University of North Carolina gave a keyspeech and organized a practical workshop to introduce Second Life as a techology whichcan enrich teaching of every classroom and which enables lecturing people from different corners of the planet in realtime. Another keynotespeaker Lynette Naidoo from the University of South Africa revealed changes of pedagogy as a discipline which has been transforming with the development of new technologies. Close attention was also paid to open distance learning. Jiri Mares from the Charles University in Hradec Kralove focused his speech on their research findings and disclosed difficulties accompanying the survey of DL pedagogical effectiveness.
A large variety of presentations and workshops were prepared, among all to mention the topics of ten-year history of e-learning at Czech universities, innovations in e-learning, students´ projects such as VIAKISK using Second Life as a platform for information exchange, webcasting systems, e-learning in distant language teaching, blended learning or constructivism.
The event brough wide opportunities for networking and creating new ties among the participants and their institutions.
Thanks have to be expressed to both, the speakers for sharing their expertise, research findings and their practical implementation and the organizers alike – for smooth and flawless running of the conference.