Trey Mireles is speaking at a conference

Nicolet College to host state tech expo

By Giles Morris
Daily News Staff
Technical colleges have a number of reasons to embrace the array of ongoing advances that are revolutionizing the transmission of information in the digital age and nearly all of them will be on display today at Nicolet College during the Wisconsin Technical College System’s Tech Expo 2009.

The annual event, hosted for the first time in the Northwoods, is a chance for instructors from all over the state to share the ways they have used technology to improve their teaching practices.

Over 170 participants, mostly from tech colleges but also from K-12 systems and private institutions, will take part in 34 different workshops throughout the day, with subjects ranging from concrete instructional delivery platforms like “Interactive Whiteboards and Virtual Classrooms” presented by Theresa Butori of Blackhawk Technical College to digital-age pedagogical approaches like “Brain-Based Learning” presented by Trey Mireles of Northeast Wisconsin Technical College.

Beth Dailey, the dean of instruction at Nicolet College’s Lakeland campus and one of the event’s principal architects, said the Tech Expo is important for the community of instructors in the technical college system.

“The Tech Expo is really a great opportunity for faculty and staff to learn from each other. That’s really what’s happening here,” Dailey said. “People are sharing what they are doing and how they are learning with other teachers.”

Dailey said the practical use of technology to enhance the long-distance learning experience is a crucial part of the technical college mission.

“It really is important for tech college teachers to utilize technology for a number of reasons,” Dailey said. “The more flexible we can be with on-line learning in terms of teaching adult learners with time constraints, that’s beneficial. But you also want to make that learning experience rich by taking advantage of the technology to add different elements.”

Marc Boucher, director of the Nicolet College Library, sees the Tech Expo as an opportunity to learn, but also as an important platform for disseminating information. His team will unveil two totally new technology-based programs, course-casting and library course pages, at the event.

“There’s a couple of aspects to this. One, it’s a way to show what we’re doing at Nicolet amongst our peers. We’re rolling out two new things we’re doing in our program,” Boucher said. “It also allows us to learn about what other colleges are doing that’s innovative so we’re not always trying to reinvent the wheel.”

Course-casting, a program the college released in a beta format over the course of the past two semesters, will allow any Nicolet College instructor to augment their course pages with podcasts of lectures and other on-screen materials. Library course pages, another of the library’s technology-driven enrichment tools, will function as customized research portals for all of its courses, complete with on-line style guides, relevant databases, reserve materials, course-casts and even a chat feature.

“Every single class will have this customized research portal and we’re rolling that out at the Tech Expo,” Boucher said.

Trey Mireles, a psychology instructor at Northeast Wisconsin Technical College, is excited about the prospect of addressing his peers on the benefits of brain-based learning, a teaching style designed to increase student retention and improve student success by engaging different learning modes at the same time.

“We don’t learn in just one way, which is often how we teach,” Mireles said. “The reality is we learn with our whole brain and that includes the auditory component, physical movement, and visual aspects at the same time.”

Mireles will offer up ways to use mind-mapping, qwizdom hand-held devices, and gallery walks in an integrated presentation designed to communicate the power of the brain-based learning model.

“The idea is rather than just telling them about the technologies I want to get them to experience it themselves,” Mireles said.

Dailey said the event will also showcase Nicolet College and the Northwoods to instructors from around the state, particularly during the Come Fire, Come Food bread-breaking ceremony at the end of the day.

While pre-registration for the event is recommended, people interested in participating may still register at the event. For more information about Tech Expo 2009 visit http://systemattic.wtcsystem.edu/professional-development/techexpo09/Index.htm