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Eric Stoller, a student affairs blogger for Inside Higher Education, discusses the need for technology proficiency within student affairs departments. During his time as an academic advisor, Stoller used his knowledge of technology to spend more time with students and less time working on organizational tasks. While academic affairs departments have slowly begun adapting with technological advances, student affairs departments appear to be left behind. Technologies exist to help streamline student services processes. If student affairs departments invested in learning and using new technologies, their efficiency would increase. Stoller also explains student affairs offices need to meet students where they are: on social media. Student affairs departments deal with a variety of issues and utilizing social media and other communication channels to reach students is beneficial. Regardless of how it is done, Stoller believes student affairs employees need to adapt to technological advances before being left behind in higher education.

The author focuses on the use of blended education at two institutions: Wesleyan University and Bryn Mawr College. Both institutions are Carnegie Mellon University's Open Learning Initiative (OLI) to enhance courses previously taught solely face-to-face. Wesleyan University is using the OLI modules to tutor less-prepared students in introductory courses. The OLI course modules allow students to gain material at a faster pace than in a traditional classroom alone. Administrators at Wesleyan believe the blended model will reinforce the hands-on teaching practices their liberal arts program promotes.  Bryn Mawr as allowed faculty members to adopt OLI modules at their own initiative. Not only to the OLI modules assist the students in learning material faster, but the program also collects data on the student's learning patterns, personalizing the program through each use. Using personalized learning assistance will allow an elite institution, such as Bryn Mawr, to admit a wide range of students, with confidence less academically prepared students can be successful.  In initial research, students enrolled in blended courses using the OLI module learn as much, if not more, as students in courses only meeting face-to-face. The persistence rates of lower-income students using the OLI module were close to 100 percent in Bryn Mawr's preliminary study. While liberal arts colleges may continue to build their reputations on small classes and personalized attention from faculty members, blended courses are able to enhance the traditional instruction model. Perhaps in the future, more liberal arts colleges will be using their blende technologies as a selling point to prospective students as Wesleyan and Bryn Mawr currently are.

The article focuses on the 2012 ECAR Undergraduate Technology Survey results and its implications on higher education. Steven Kolowich, a technology reporter for Insider Higher Education, discusses the results throughout the article, explaining the significant jump in student demand for technology within coursework. ECAR is the research arm of Educaause, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the use of technology in higher education.  The 2012 survey results indicate a spike in student technological demands within the world of higher education. 47% of students in 2010 believed their professors were effectively using technology, which jumped to 68% in 2012. Students are enjoying the use and presentation of technology in the classroom more than ever before.  Of the 10,000 students to participate in the survey, 49% want to see professors use the learning management system more, 57% want to use more open educational resources, 46% want more videos used in coursework, and 55% want more game-based learning. A surprising 70% of the students claim to have used one or more ebooks during their college career. While students want to use more technology within their courses, the students also indicated they desire more training on each technological service or program. Brief instruction at the beginning of a course is not enough.

As online education continues to expand in the United States, Kenneth Heischmidt and Yves Damoiseau conducted a study to better understand the dimensions of quality in online business courses. The authors collected data and studied the dimensions of quality perceived by students in online classes. The results of the study aid online instructors develop courses to meet student expectations, increase satisfaction with the course, and ultimately increase student success. After surveying 260 business students at Southeast Missouri State University enrolled in an online class, 96 responded to the survey. The survey results led to three dimensions of quality in online courses: feedback, format, and content. Students expect timely feedback from an instructor, including prompt grading, access to the course and grades 24/7. The course format itself should be easy to navigate, without group work, and instruction facilitated by the instructor, according the students who participated in the study. Finally, the content of the course must offer clearly explained assignments, supplemental notes provided by the instructor, up-to-date content, and convey more information during class time than found within the textbook. In addition to the three dimensions of quality, the study also revealed, students expecting to receive an A or B in a course were also significantly more satisfied with their online course experience.  The number of participants in the study was small, limiting the results. A large participant pool is needed to test the results on a grander scale. The study focused on business students, but could be adjusted for other departments and programs in the future, increasing access to participants.

Gene Wade, the creator of University Now, in an educational entrepreneur. A subsidiary of Wade's University Now, called New Charter University, uses similar education principles as Western Governors University, but with a different pricing model. New Charter University offers online, self-paced courses for $796 a semester. Students are able to sample courses for free and pay the enrollment fees in order to receive credit. The University is nationally accredited, offering associates, bachelors, and masters' degrees. When a student enrolls in a course, he or she takes an entrance exam, determining ability to understand course material. If the student proves knowledge mastery of some or all of the course topics, he or she is waived of completing that portion of the coursework.  Wade believes Pell Grants and access to student loans have led to the ever-increasing cost of college. New Charter University makes higher education affordable, while also convenient. A few questions tied to New Charter University's success still remain. Will employers value degrees offered through the University? Will the University obtain regional accreditation, allowing for credits to transfer to most colleges and universities across the country? Will students enroll in high numbers? Regardless of the future of New Charter University, Wade and his colleagues are collecting as much data on their students as possible. Tracking students allows University Now to better understand how students learn online, allowing new programs and technologies to enhance the online education model.

This research study was carried out by Julia Matuga of Bowling Green University in Ohio, to discover the relationship between self-regulation, goal orientation, and academic achievement of high school students enrolled in online college courses? Many United States secondary schools require their students to take at least one university online course before graduation and to capitalize on funding opportunities, many universities offer high school students access to their online courses. For this study, 43 high achieving high school students applied and were selected to take one online science course at Bowling Green University. The students were examined to record any changes in motivation, goal orientation and self-regulation while they took the online courses. Data collection methods used for the study were pre and post-tests, students application essays, focus group meetings, self-evaluations at the end of the courses and a Motivation Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) given at the beginning and the end of the program. 42 students completed the program and all but two of them passed the online course. From the results, they were classified into high achieving, average, and low achieving students. The results revealed that low achieving students recorded the highest self-regulatory scores while the scores for high and average-achieving students fell. The high achieving students had the highest motivation subscale mean scores before and after taking the online courses. The study concluded that while the question of how online learning environment impacts motivation, self-regulation and student achievement is still being investigated, the study is still recommended as a model for higher education online programs seeking to attract high school students. As online programs gain popularity, student learning will need to be supported and this study might offer a foundation for future research.

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. 

Four faculty members from Ferris State University share their experiences integrating technology into their classrooms, usingto the Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning. The Center assists faculty members in learning technologies to enhance their lesson plans. All four faculty members insist the technology is easy to learn and use as enrichment to coursework. The technology allows the faculty members to establish a presence, both online and on-ground, all while using technology their students are already familiar with. Faculty members, as well as information technology employees, at higher education institutions are the intended audience for this video. Each faculty member described a different technology he or she uses within the classroom (both online and on-ground). The four technologies described include Adobe Connect, iTunes U, CPS pulse clickers, and Poll Everywhere. Adobe Connect is a way for students and faculty members to engage online, including back and forth real-time discussion. iTunes U allows faculty members to share podcasts of lectures and lessons for students to listen or watch at their leisure. CPS pulse clickers enable students to take tests and quizzes during class and receive immediate feedback and grades. The CPS pulse clickers also let the professor know what material students have or have not mastered, dictating the rest of the lecture. Finally, Poll Everywhere allows faculty to poll students before, during, or after class, increasing student engagement, as cell phones are typically used to poll.

The University of Delaware created a video highlighting one faculty member's use of technology within a study abroad program in Panama. Professor Jorge Cubillas works in the Foreign Languages and Literatures department at the University of Delaware. Cubillas uses Facebook and blogs to assist students in reinforcing material learned in class. The intended audience for this video is higher education administrators working with study abroad programs.  Cubillas creates a group within Facebook for the University of Delaware students studying in Panama each semester. Interestingly, Cubillas does not interact with the students using the Facebook group, but rather allows them to feel more comfortable by sharing with just students.  The Facebook group, according Cubillas, creates cohesion within the group and facilitates sharing of information and experiences among the students. Students also contribute to blogs, adding written passages, as well as personal videos, reflecting on their experiences so far. The students' written and oral skills in Spanish improve through their blogs, while also sharing great, personal experiences with the rest of the world.

Brad Jennings, a Louisburg College employee, and education technology enthusiast, created a video on how to use the Open Learning Initiative. The video is targeted towards higher education instructors and educating faculty members in incorporating the Open Learning Initiative in their courses. The Open Learning Initiative assists students in learning course material through an online site, collecting data on student learning styles, and adapting how information is presented for each student. The courses are self-paced and allow students to master material at their own speed. Jennings navigates the Open Learning Initiative website, explaining the three log-in options: instructors, independent learners, and academic students. An instructor can create an account, and then log-in to create online courses for free. There may be small maintenance fees associated with a few select classes, but the Open Learning Initiative team offers to waive the cost if it prevents a student from enrolling. The additional costs are typically $10 to $15. The instructor would download the Course Builder application, build their course, and house it on the Open Learning Initiative cloud for free. Once the course has been created, students can log on to the Open Learning Initiative site and enter the course key to view the material. 

Julie Phillips, an online instructor for Globe Education Network, shares an extensive list of suggestions for faculty members hoping to incorporate service-learning into an online course. On-ground courses have long included service-learning components at colleges and universities across the country. Over the past decade online programs have grown drastically, but have left the challenge of offering service-learning courses to online learners. Phillips offers a variety of suggestions to assist a faculty member or administrator develop an online course including a service-learning assignment. Below is a list of Phillips' recommendations: - Select an appropriate course - Establish clear expectations - Respond to email/outreach from students and community partners within 24-48 hours - Volunteering should align with course objectives - Identify challenges upfront - Communicate, communicate, communicate - Encourage reflection throughout the course - Listen to student concerns and work through them - Enlist feedback from students and community partners - Allow students to share their experiences - Requirements should be realistic - Never underestimate the power that hands-on experience has on student learning - Incorporate various resources into class to help guide students - Not all community partners are created the same - Get excited!

The authors collected data from first-year students at the University of Illinois in relation to their iPad 2 use in academic and non-academic settings. The intended audience is librarians and faculty members interested in incorporating tablet technology in the classroom or other learning environments. The study results found the iPad 2 to be helpful to students when searching the internet, viewing course management pages, and utilizing apps in connection with course materials. The students also used the iPad 2 to listen to music, watch videos, use social networks, and Skype. After using the iPad 2 for one week, the students made suggestions for new apps that would helpful to them. The student suggestions included a campus map app, a contact info for faculty app, an app to help in selecting future courses, and an app to help monitor grades.  The authors concluded that tablets, specifically the iPad 2, have a lot of potential to improve teaching and learning methods within higher education, however, there is much progress to be made. While the drawbacks to the tablet are somehow limited (no keyboard, need wireless connection, etc), the number and scope of apps need to be increased. Students expressed interest in using apps in connection to academic work, but most of those apps have yet to be created. 

Steven Kolowich, a technology reporter for Inside Higher Education, describes the online support initiative supporting online programs at Northern Virginia Community College. The intended audience for the article is higher education officials, including institutions expanding into online education. Kolowich highlights NOVA's experience with online education and how the College turned a mediocre program into a successful one.   When NOVA began an online program in the mid-2000's, the vice president for instruction and information technology, Steven Sachs, dedicated a few IT employees to help online students with small, instructional issues. After some research, Sachs realized for-profit colleges were spending more than half of their budgets on support services for students, such as financial aid counseling, job placement assistance, and academic advising. Shortly after this realization, Sachs implemented the "Next Level Initiative," spending more than $2 million to offer support to online students. The Next Level Initiative was extremely effective on all six of NOVA's campuses. Over the next four years, online programs grew four times faster than on-campus programs. Additionally, the difference in completion between online and on-ground students fell from 16% to 8%. Kolowich uses NOVA as an example to express how imperative support services are for online students.

The author of this article is a staff reporter for an information technology blog geared towards higher education professionals. The author shares how the University of North Carolina's School of Information and Library Science provided free data storage to all incoming students who were interested in 2011. The service offered by LifeTime Library, works on students' personal computers and allows them to automatically archive their files and folders. The data is then housed on a website, where students can search for files by name or by date saved. Students can continue to use the online storage after they graduate, which remains free for these students. The author shares that at this college, dealing with large amounts of online data is a big part of what students learn at the School of Information and Library Science and they intend for the LifeTime Library services to act as a teaching tool for students to figure out the best ways to organize their own digital information. This college also provides courses to focus on ways to make the service more useful, by incorporating data collected from students. The author interviewed the Dean of the College, who reported that eventually the program should be able to save every version of a file, even if it has been edited multiple times, archive mobile phone data, or save social media pages. The author explored the legal ramifications, sharing that the college has the right to scan any information housed in the data storage, and that students must agree to an acceptable-use policy. The author shares that this college anticipates the program to grow, having students store more information than they would have otherwise. The challenge for administrators to anticipate how much storage will be needed will likely dictate how much the school will have to pay to maintain a service like this one. This article would be most useful for technology administrators looking to implement a similar service at their institution.

The author is Associate Provost and Executive Director of the Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship at Georgetown University. The author refers to Clayton Christensen's "disruptive innovation" term to refer to the recent changes in higher education. The author argues that a key source of disruption in higher education is coming not from the outside, but from internal practices. This administrator points to the increase in experiential modes of learning, how education is moving from "margin to center", which proves to be powerful in the quality and meaning of the undergraduate experience as well as the way business is conducted. The author refers to the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) and its publishing of a "high impact practice" list, strategies which are connected with high retention and persistence rates, such as undergraduate research, service/community-based learning, and global learning. These practices also have a significant influence because they increase (according to George Kuh) student behaviors that lead to meaningful learning outcomes. The author summarizes how technologies can play a key role as new digital, learning, and analytics tools make it possible to mimic some features of high impact activity inside classrooms, changing when and how students can engage in course content. Since the greatest impact on learning is in the innovative, integrative, and socially networked experiences, then the author argues that faculty and staff need to re-create dimensions of these experiences by bridging the classroom with life outside of it. He concludes that connections between integrative thinking, or experiential learning, and the social network should no longer be an afterthought, but the connection that should guide and reshape learning in higher education. This article would be most useful for administrators and faculty who inform decisions related to technology infrastructure and tools for teaching and learning.

The authors of this article work for the Center for Teaching, Learning, & Technology at Washington State University. They looked at learning management systems and how currently they do not accurately capture what students have learned. Both authors discovered that the majority of assignments that make up students' experience with the higher education curriculum do not ask them to think, but to recall lectures, text, or both, which may be why LMS are designed to reflect this idea. They examine the concept and perception of a learning environment from the classroom to the internet and their relationship to views of teaching and learning. Examples and research, including an example of a Web 2.0 pro-social effort, are used to demonstrate the difference between the current state of teaching and learning, and an emerging vision. The authors refer to Educause Center for Applied Research, Morgan's (2003) study. Morgan reports, faculty were gaining, at least one key principle of good practice from LMS, increased feedback to students (Chickering & Gamson, 1987) through the use of the online gradebook. According to Morgan (as cited by Brown and Peterson, 2008) this was an outcome that "alters" faculty relationships with students and students with their own work. The authors predict that the successful LMS application of the future will be a gradebook that accommodates shifting ways of receiving feedback. The authors believe that a successful gradebook will be recognized as a communication tool that allows faculty and students to have a variety of communication options (faculty to student, faculty to groups of students, etc.). They point to the instructional challenge of guiding the tool discussion toward issues related to outcomes and what quality performance looks like. The authors refer to the LMS of the future capturing not in our learning about, but in learning "to be". Faculty are seeking a place for students to learn and operate which complements student im

Ward's article touches on seven key points influencing the future of technology in higher education. Following the description of the seven points, Ward suggests where technology may be going in the future of higher education. The seven key areas listed by Ward include: - Technology is changing how we learn, college costs are ever increasing without necessarily justifying the increases - Online and hybrid courses are attracting students with convenience - Students are expecting faculty to connect with them digitally - More students than ever are able to access education online, including foreign and domestic students - For-profit colleges continue to compete with non-profit colleges for students and market share - Massive open online courses (MOOCs) are gaining in popularity and scaring college and universities into thinking about their own online programs - College budgets continue to decrease Ward believes these seven issues will be the most influential on the use of technology in higher education moving into the future. Online and hybrid classes will continue to grow, but Ward expresses a need for better programs and teaching aids to improve the quality and access to such courses.  The article focuses on technology, but credits the value of an on-campus educational experience within the final paragraph. After all of his points are made, Ward explains while online and hybrid courses continue to develop, many are still invested in the on-campus model of learning. The reader is left wondering, will the technological advances ever become fully adopted within the higher education world? Or will our antiquated model for learning continue to be used in most educational settings?

This article explores the gap between expectations of faculty and students by focusing on defining the online "student". The author looks at practitioner interviews to identify "ways of talking" about students and Annemarie Mol's (2002; 1999) concept of enactment to understand who students are and how they behave in the interactive spaces of online learning. The author's argument is that understanding the category of "student" in multiple ways offers faculty a way to approach the "potentially disorienting spaces" (Bayne and Ross, 2007) of online teaching practices. Online learning presents a different environment of interaction and engagement for teaching and this article states that in order to be effective, teaching online students requires new strategies for engagement. Some of the strategies outline developing a community of learners, treating students as customers, and considering students in the context of their digital generation. This article is helpful for those who are teaching an online course or considering how to design an online offering. The author is a curriculum and academic developer for LaTrobe University in Australia.

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.