Group items tagged

This is a research project undertaken by Crispin Dale and John Pymm from the University of Wolvehampton in the United Kingdom, to explore the use of the iPod as a technological learning tool. The iPod is defined as a portable media player designed by Apple Company originally as an audio player, but subsequently updated to include video, social media, games and many other applications. The authors mention that the iPod was categorized by Berry (2006 cited in Dale & Pymm, 2009) as disruptive technology that challenged conventional education practices. The podagogy project was conducted in the University of Wolvehampton performing arts courses. The term 'podagogy' is defined as a portmanteau term used to define the iPod's dual usefulness as a podcast and technological tool. Using three different projects requiring students' use of the iPod to retrieve information and create knowledge, students were expected to deliver outcomes showing a range of skills that included creative and performance skills, interpretive skills, research and assimilation skills and synthesis of complex theories and information. Five themes that emerged from the project were * Flexible learning. Students had the freedom of time and space to reflect on their own work away from the classroom and the teacher. * Creative learning. Students were empowered to think more creatively about their work. * Sensory learning. Students learned through sound and kinesthetically. * Personalized learning. Students felt a sense of satisfaction at being able to upload their own personal works. * Collaborative learning. Students worked with others on dance, drama and podcasts for the iPod. The aim of this article is to demonstrate to educators, the use of the iPod as an effective technological tool that can enhance student learning and participation because the students of the present era are greatly influenced by technological shifts and trends.

The author of this article is a faculty member and software specialist of Computer Information Systems at Bentley College. He discusses that in today's Web 2.0 world, wikis have emerged as a tool that may complement or replace the use of traditional course management systems as a tool for sharing course information. In the article, he describes best practices for using a collaborative web application known as a wiki to change a traditional course management system. A wiki is a useful tool for involving students in the process of creating and sharing course content. While course management systems have specialized features such as online grade books and exams, useful exclusively in academic environments, students are not likely to encounter these tools outside of a college classroom. By introducing a wiki for collaborative course management, students also learn to interact with a useful real world tool. This allows them to complete some tasks that would be more difficult using a traditional course management system. Since students and faculty can both post information to the wiki, the role of the instructor changes from being the leader to being a partner with the students in their own learning process. The author shares some of the educational uses, such as tools for teams to perform group projects, creating literature reviews for research projects, participating on signup sheets, summarizing readings, posting project summaries, communicating with students, and even sharing class notes. Educational concerns are also shared, such as: wikis lack features that are needed for acceptance within the educational community, access control to protect certain public pages (such as the syllabus), or providing private spaces for collaboration. The author views this as problematic because anyone can change anything. However, he also shows that this aspect may promote a sense of community among its users. He predicts that the course management system (CMS) of the future must be

Ben Showers, the author, admits to keeping the projections optimistic, and avoiding the issues of privacy, protection, and data shadow.The article describes five changes to mobile technology that will influence higher education into the future. The first change is mobile devices as a platform for learning and courses. Currently, mobile applications are more of a stepping-stone to larger course-management sites. In the future, students will desire actual learning platforms on their mobile device. The second change focuses on mobile realities. Augmented reality on mobile devices now allows the digital world to overlap with the real, physical world. Higher education institutions are able to use these new augmented reality technologies to aid students in find resources and information on-campus. The third mobile technology to affect higher education is mobile form. In the future, mobile devices will become more personalized and much smaller. As devices are created within glasses, earpieces, and sensors, higher education will have to adapt to those changes. Mobile scales are the fourth change to mobile technology Showers highlights. Large universities will have the ability to personalize each student's experience, offering an educational concierge service never before imagined. Finally, mobile disconnectedness will influence higher education. As students' lives become infiltrated with information via mobile devices, using the Internet, campuses should offer wifi coldspots. Wifi coldspots will offer students and faculty an opportunity to detach from the online work, taking a break from the academic world. 

Edutopia, an organization dedicated to innovating and reforming education, created a video on the integration of technology in education. While the video is geared towards a K-12 audience, the main concepts are relevant to higher education. Resources available through technology should be used to the best of an instructor's ability. Technology should enhance the classroom and lessons. Students take an active role in their learning process while creating projects such as movies and podcasts.  Utilizing technology within education allows students to share their work with the rest of the world. The students are also able to learn at their own pace, master concepts, and move on when all the necessary skills and knowledge have been learned. This is a significant transition from the previous way of learning. Within the video, Edutopia explains "integrating technology with face-to-face teacher time generally produces better academic outcomes than employing either technique alone." The role of the teacher has shifted to a facilitator. Now it is up to colleges, universities, and K-12 schools across the country to integrate technology into the classroom.

Lohr provides details of an initiative of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, in partnership with four other nonprofit education foundations to speed up the development and use of online learning tools. The initiative arose out of concern that many Americans do not possess post-secondary degrees. Even though the question of how technology can improve learning is still being debated, the article states that technology can personalize learning, and has potential benefits. The project was given an initial $20 million for the development of online courses, tools and software. Bill Gates believes that innovation is the only hope, and an expert from Hewlett foundation, a partner in the venture, believes that online tools will provide young people with access to jobs. The article furnishes examples of similar projects that have recorded success, one of which is the Carnegie Mellon University. The University employed a blended learning or hybrid method that combined both online and classroom models. The students' test scores were just as high as those of students who learned in traditional classrooms. Online learning solves the problem of access to higher education, an obstacle that hinders many young people from attending colleges and universities. This is a news piece on the potential of online learning to provide access to higher education programs.

From the non-academic side of the issues, this article outlines emerging technology trends in business. The article solidifies arguments for technology awareness, adoption, implementation and support in higher education because it supports the theory that technology adoption in education is not the same as educational technology adoption. IT governance is about the technology that higher professionals need to do their jobs - to run the business of higher ed. General project management principles apply, as well as general awareness of consumer technology trends because, after all, higher ed professionals are consumers and the university is a consumer and a B2B partner with vendors and services for mobile tech, cloud technology, hardware and software, and more.

The New York Times dubbed 2012 "the year of the MOOC" and throughout 2013 universities and colleges of every size and shape scrambled to make sense of the phenomena of massive open online courses (MOOC). Some institutions gambled big on MOOCs, thinking that the massive online format would ease crowded classrooms and cut down the cost of paying faculty (adjunct and otherwise) to teach hundreds of students the same required content. San Jose State was one such institution, taking the risk of placing freshmen into a MOOC for a basic math course, a project which had disastrous results. In this article, Georgia Tech explains how they intend to continue applying MOOCs to solve campus problems, citing the San Jose State case as an example of what not to do. GA Tech announced in 2013 that they were going to offer a master's degree via MOOC, one of the first credit bearing MOOC-to-degree programs in the country. While MOOC interest has waned since the start of 2014, GA tech continues their work, with a waiting list of applicants ready to jump into the next MOOC-to-degree cohort. This articles serves as an example of managing emerging technology and GA Tech leadership is a group of individuals to monitor as the next few years roll out. Does the program continue? Do graduates succeed? Can the school sustain the program? Does the school launch addition programs following that model? Do other schools make a similar attempt? Any research that comes of the GA Tech endeavor will be interesting.

This case study breaks down IT costs into simple easy to read tables, and the author provides insight and background on the IT budget restructuring project he undertook at his university between 2007-2008. This case is important because it is centered during a financially difficult time in higher education, when IT costs were steadily increasing due to higher demand from all campus users and budget cuts were imminent due to the global financial crisis at the time. Perhaps not a definitive case study, it is worth a read to develop more familiarity with IT portfolio management.

This case study details the definition of an IT problem (too many projects backlogged) and the realization of a larger systemic problem (adopted technology not meeting needs of users) which led to a deep analysis of campus systems, stakeholders, and IT governance. The case is an example of a user community hungry for technology and hopeful that technology will solve their problems and an IT organization willing to support more technology use. The solution was IT governance, a process to more carefully evaluate user needs and proposed solutions and balance that with existing infrastructure and long term strategic planning. Value here is in the title: not often does higher education admit to failure and this is part of my thesis - that failure must be part of the culture in order to manage emerging technology effectively. CIOs and other campus leaders must be willing to acknowledge that something isn't working, admit failure or defeat, and move on. This must be done quickly - in an agile environment. The value here is that this case study illustrates my theory.

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.

Voss reflects on the last five years, since his initial debate with Bradley Wheeler in 2010 about the role of the campus CIO and concludes that the role of the CIO has changed. Not only has the role changed, he explains, but the qualities a CIO must possess have changed as well. As the CIO, in many cases, is becoming a more senior leader, there is also competition on campus as some academic and administrative departments seek to gain control of the IT they use. For example, a VIce Provost of Research Computing or a CHief Digital Officer. Voss argues that breaking off responsibilities and redistributing controls the campus IT portfolio puts the institution in danger. he argues that the campus CIO needs to be actively involved in all segments of campus IT use and needs to be the primary spokesperson reporting to the president and the board on all IT matters to ensure that investments and IT projects are aligned efficiently and effectively.

The authors feel textbooks are outdated by the time of print, offer a limited perspective, force the reader to take on a passive role while learning, and are limited to their physical form. The four limitations of textbooks are adding to higher education's lack of active learning. Students today expect to be engaged while they learn, not to read from an outdated textbook or listen to static lectures. There is a potential for change, however, believed by the authors. An example is given from Old Dominion University. A team of faculty all assigned to teach the course Social and Cultural Foundations of Education to potential education students, created an assignment where the students would write their own textbook. The final result  (called a wikibook) was determined by the students and faculty using a grading rubric for each student submission. The best-written and supported sections were submitted to the final wikibook. The assignment was a huge success. A few years later when educational laws changed in Virginia, the wikibook was quite to adapt. The authors argue wikibooks may not be factually perfect, but there are quite a few benefits: a student-centered learning experience, skills are developed in researching primary sources, and the instructional design is extremely adaptive and flexible. In order for a wikibook assignment to be successful, the faculty member(s) must take a guiding approach to student learning, instead of lecturing. The conclusion argues for a pedagogical shift, not necessarily involving wikibooks, but a more general transition to faculty to encourage creativity and joy in teaching and learning. 

This article explains how one institution, Abilene Christian University (ACU) has focused on mobile phones and how they are successfully changing the classroom and data collection efforts. This is one example of how the traditional teaching and learning model is becoming more collaborative and interactive, now that instructors and students have equal and flexible access to information. ACU does regular self-reporting surveys of students and teachers to assess their opinions and evaluations. Based on the data collected since using devices in their courses, students are participating more during class and communication between faculty and students has increased. This article also describes how this institution has incorporated "mobile learning fellows", faculty who are given time to work on and evaluate a mobile learning project of their choice. The author is the Senior Editor of Network World magazine and this information would be helpful for faculty and administrators in information technology or instructional technology, in order to successfully implement curriculum onto mobile devices.

The authors of this study are two faculty members from New Zealand who sought to improve the standard of writing for their students in their first-year courses for undecided students. They describe at length how they used similar ways to improve the students' literacy skills. The faculty focused specifically on discipline-specific writing skills by engaging the students in their digital literacy skills through course assignments and group projects. This research would be helpful to use as a guideline for faculty teaching in undergraduate disciplines who are interested in learning how best engage students by tapping into their technology skills and familiarity with using online resources. The authors point to a need for supporting the unique journey students experience through their online social interactions as well as designing the online course assignments based on an initial assessment of student learning profiles.

The New Media Consortium is an international research project developed by practitioners and educational technology visionaries, established in 2002 that identifies and describes emerging technologies likely to have a large influence over the next five years, both in education and globally. It is important to note that a previous Horizon Report (2009) has been frequently mentioned in other articles and websites related to current educational technology trends. In the 2012 report, the one year or less prediction focuses on mobile apps and tablet computing being the most prevalent, with increased utilization by college students. The two to three year forecast includes game-based learning and learning analytics, explaining that the ability to tailor educational activities as content becomes easier to manipulate with the benefit of education becoming more open to change. In four to five years, the authors emphasize gesture-based computing and the "internet of things" or objects producing their own information will both have a significant impact on education. The group expects that educational trends influenced by these technologies will be collaborative learning, working in teams, and a shift towards more challenge-based and active learning. This article provides a helpful summary reflecting the expected realities in higher education and in the larger society, acting as a guide for educators to follow technology trends, challenges, and relevance for teaching and learning.

CEIT - Centre for Educational Innovation and Technology. University of Queensland resource. Multiple areas of important. Some access is limited but provides a very good foundation of their areas of development as applied to ed tech.

Interesting ideas about structuring education differently

This blog covers the content outlined in Salman Khan's book, The One World Schoolhouse. Salman Khan, founder of Khan Academy (currently a free, easily accessible, and widely popular online collection of video lectures) envisions a college where students spend their time on internships instead of in classrooms and professors operate as professional mentors on real-world projects, helping to solve problems collaboratively. Students learn by pacing themselves and define their own personal learning environment. The information outlined in the blog and the topic of the book seems significant with regards to how curriculum will continue to evolve, particularly since MOOCs modeled similar to Khan Academy are predicted to have an enormous impact on higher education. From reading this blog, it points to the idea that the success of free and open online courses is difficult to ignore. This technology blog author appears to be following upcoming trends and ideas in technology and the greater impact on colleges and universities.