# Notes from AERA11 in New Orleans


![](http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1144/1325386250_a3275818f0.jpg)AERA
stands for the American Educational Research Association, but as with so
many American associations, their annual meeting is a decidedly
international affair. It's also gigantic, easily the largest meeting of
educators in the world, with [this year's
meeting](http://aera.net/2011AnnualMeeting.htm) bringing some 13,000
attendees spread over 5 large hotels in downtown New Orleans.

This was my first time to AERA, and it was quite an overwhelming
experience -- with often more than 100 parallel sessions going on at any
time, on anything from adolescence to zone of proximal development, I
tried to attend a variety of sessions in my field, to get a sense of the
research going on. I also tried to take quite detailed notes on my new
[[:start|wiki]], which worked really well (especially because I could do
it offline -- connectivity was not the best).

I have a [[aera11:start|general list of all my AERA11 notes]], and here
I'll highlight some of the interesting sessions I went to. (I didn't get
notes from all sessions, sometimes because I was too tired, or I didn't
find it relevant, sometimes because I was out of power. I am seriously
considering buying an external powerbar for future conferences, because
having the ability to take notes throughout the day is a significant
advantage.)

There was very little about open education at AERA, although Wendy
Drexler did  [[aera11:ple|a presentation about a MOOC]]. I hope to see
more research on MOOCs, open courses, PLEs and so on, at future
sessions. I was very happy that I went to the evening meeting of the
special interest group on self-regulated learning. Allyson Hadwin gave
[[aera11:hadwin|an interesting presentation about fostering
self-regulated learning in university students]], but the papers I read
before coming to the meeting were even more interesting, and I feel
[[self-regulated learning]] and [[self-directed learning]] are fields
that hold great promise for open education. How can we better help
students at P2PU, or in MOOCs, motivate themselves, be meta-cognitively
aware of their own learning, etc? (This was also one of the few
occasions where I had time to do some reading before the meeting, which
was very helpful).

[[aera11:gerhard fischer|Gerhard Fischer]], a well known figure in CSCL,
gave a great presentation on "a culture of participation". He seems to
be doing some very interesting work, and is definitively someone I want
to read more about/of. In the same session, there were also very good
presentations by [[aera11:sharon derry|Sharon Derry]], [[aera11:Mike
Eisenberg|Mike Eisenberg]] and [[aera11:Alexander Repenning|Alexander
Repenning]].

[[Dan Hickey]] gave [[aera11:dan hickey|a very inspiring presentation]]
on participatory assessment, with many examples from his own work in
schools and at university. Ever since I got to know him at P2PU's
assessment workshop in Palo Alto, I've been very impressed by his work,
and look forward to read more (see examples of his work at [Working
Examples](http://workingexamples.org/frontend/people/10)).

There were a number of interesting presentations on pedagogical agents,
by [[aera11:Heller, Procter|Heller, Procter]], [[aera11:Kim|Kim]],
[[aera11:Haake. Silvervarg et al|Haake. Silvervarg et al]],
[[aera11:Veletsianos|Veletsianos]], [[aera11:Adcock|Adcock]] and
[[aera11:Overmyer|Overmyer]]. I also got a good overview of the use of
knowledge maps in education by [[aera11:Harold F. Neil Greg Chung|Harold
F. Neil & Greg Chung]], [[aera11:Dirk Ifenthaler Pablo Nicolai
PirnayDummer|Dirk Ifenthaler & Pablo Nicolai Pirnay Dummer]],
[[aera11:Roy B. Clarina|Roy B. Clarina]], [[aera11:Furstenau,
Oldenburger Trojahner|Furstenau, Oldenburger & Trojahner]]  and
[[aera11:Breuer, Bender Barry|Breuer, Bender & Barry]].

I look forward to the next AERA, in Vancouver. And I hope to also take a
lot of notes at [CSCL 2011](http://www.isls.org/cscl2011/index.htm) in
HK.

Stian *Thank you to [David Paul
Ohmer](http://www.flickr.com/photos/the-o/) for the picture* (CC BY)