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Conversation among faculty from several institutions about the benefits for students who become engaged differently in courses through technology.

Published in a technology review journal through Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a marriage of technology and higher education is present. The intended audience is those interested in technology, as well as the world of higher education.  Although the article is titled The Crisis in Higher Education, a real sense of crisis is only found in the last few paragraphs.  Carr spends the majority of the article describing recent advances that have been made in technology influencing higher education. Two separate innovations and advances will soon combine in the future to bring online and technology-assisted education to a new level: massive open online courses (MOOCs) and software programs that collect data and analyze student learning behaviors in order to offer individualized teaching and tutoring.  While MOOCs, offered through organizations such as Coursera, Udacity, and edX, are testing the best way to present information to large groups of students located all over the world, they are also collecting learning behavior data at the same time. Software programmers are using their own data, combined with the data from MOOCs, to help develop more intuitive programs to aid in online learning. Critics argue that online classrooms cannot compare with conversations in on-ground classes or the relationship between a faculty member and a student on campus. The future of higher education is unknown, but Carr believes technology is leading the way. One of the main concerns regarding the adoption of new technology is campuses will rush into using it without researching the best options and ways to implement.  

The author, Dale Niederhauser, provides important commentary on frameworks used to speculate the future of technology in schools. He explains, in brief, how Delphi studies are used by various entities to conduct inquiry and generate ideas from experts. This is important information to consider when assessing resources such as the annual Horizon Reports, published by the New Media Consortium and considered a seminal piece of the emerging technology conversation in both K-12 and higher education. The article appears in a publication of the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), a world recognized leader in educational technology and aims to help educators understand the historical context in which emerging technology reports are created and delivered.

The authors of this article, all leaders in higher ed IT, argue that a CIO is the center of campus information technology (IT) and therefore a "change agent" that has an opportunity to contribute and have an impact in all areas of campus business. The article has several different topic sections that include quotes and commentary by the authors about being a CIO and working with the CIO. Topics include: leadership qualities of the CIO; operating a service department within the organization; initiating change on campus (ie technology project management); and contributing to the academic mission of the university through partnerships and collaborations with other executives. The web version of the article includes embedded video of the authors describing topics in greater detail. While interesting, the primary value in this article are the topics which are good fodder for one-to-one conversation and inquiry with CIOs. It would be interesting to use the article as a reference and use the topics as the foundation for interview questions. When interviewing more experienced CIO's it would be interesting to find out what has changed over time. Younger CIO perspective may be similar to the author's.

This article reviews current research to explore how pedagogy has or has not changed. The author points out that most studies fail to contribute to knowledge about learning or teaching through technology specifically. This researcher believes that if professional development for faculty includes technological, pedagogical and content knowledge, (referred to as TPACK) grounded in a constructivist paradigm, it will lead to academic growth in those areas. The author argues that educators need to be mindful of various student learning needs and offer a range of learning opportunities to allow them to succeed. The author is a faculty member at Swinburne University of Australia, and states that academic lecturers who themselves were not students in a technologically rich learning environment, or who did not learn online, will continue to struggle in the 21st century where mobile learning, blended learning and online learning will become more prevalent. This article would be helpful for faculty development administrators who are looking for effective ways to incorporate technology conversation into topics related to effective pedagogy.

This article written by Jennifer Natsu, is focused on the way learning trends have shifted to accommodate the learning styles and preferences of the present generation of students. Twenty-first century students live a connected world where they constantly communicate and share experiences through applications such as Facebook, twitter etc. Many colleges have noticeably adapted their pedagogic methods to accommodate these trends by using similar technologies to engage students. Duke University for instance, uses a "virtual hall" to engage in conversations with students in other parts of the world as well as CEOs. Harvard physics students adopt a discussion model, facilitated by small groups. This in essence, is the face the new age of education where passive learning is being replaced by more dynamic models of teaching and learning. Jennifer Natsu is a frequent contributor to e-campus news, reporting on developments in higher education.

The author of this opinion article is a professor of philosophy at Ohio State University. He summarizes how in the past he had been resistant to teaching online, but has since realized the immense benefits and opportunities of e-learning, due to several cultural changes. For example, social media, e-mail, and texting have changed personal contact so that electronic media has become a standard way of communicating. This shift along with entertainment education (referred to at edutainment) has also resulted in student preferences toward online courses. Another benefit is access, as students often want to work while attending college, or they just want the flexibility of taking classes from home without a set schedule. The faculty member shares how he transformed his traditional teaching style and gives several examples, such as turning my paper handouts into electronic slides and board work into screen-capture videos. He also shares how to keep students engaged through his delivery of content, such as speaking without notes, so there is an element of suspense through an audio recording. Utilizing content in different formats also helped him to apply techniques in another direction, as he states that many of the video clips and visuals developed for online courses can be used in traditional courses. The author ends with sharing how online teaching has increased his communication with students, through direct e-mail exchanges and conversation on the course discussion board. He concludes that students report enjoying online courses and faculty and staff need to adjust to their demands and accommodate student preferences, which troubles many faculty members who resist to teaching online. This article would be most useful for faculty as well as senior staff in academic affairs who are looking to engage faculty in teaching online.

The author of this article is an interactive news designer for The Chronicle of Higher Education. He shares how Cal State had implemented one of higher education's most aggressive campaigns for accessible technology and some of the consequences that have come with it. The author shares how Cal State has adopted strict standards for both vendors and employees. Along with other groups, it has helped force Apple, Google, and Blackboard to improve their software or lose the ability to reach Cal State's 430,000 students. Officials at Cal State were dissatisfied¬ that the iTunes software was inaccessible for many disabled students to use. Some examples given by the author was that blind students and faculty were unable to use screen-reader programs with it and closed captioning for deaf users was not properly supported. Another challenge the author mentioned was that recent budget cuts have reduced the number of staff members who train employees and convert materials to accessible formats, which has a large impact on the large numbers of documents and Web pages may not be accessible. The author highlights how Cal State's dealings with Apple a few years ago show the positive effects that a large university can have on an outside service which many students and faculty use. In February 2008, still unhappy with iTunes and iTunes U, the system's chief information officer and others flew to Apple headquarters to press the company to make more significant changes. Cal State officials say they realize they were pushing too fast and faculty and accessible media specialists could not keep up with all of the changes. Instead of trying to require complete compliance, they are now focusing their efforts on encouraging continual improvement on each campus internally and helping campus officials share best practices. The author reported that the school's accessible-media official, stated that the school has learned when to handle things centrally and when to avoid "micromanaging th