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.

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. 

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

Steve Kolowich, a technology reporter for Inside Higher Education, discusses the learning management systems (LMS) of the future. The article, geared towards an audience of higher education professionals, as well as those interested in higher education technology, highlights three up and coming LMS providers: Coursekit, Instructure Canvas, and Chegg. Instructure Canvas is an open-source LMS, offering its services to more than 100 institutions, including Brown University and Auburn University. The program is marketed to administrators, as well as individual instructors. Coursekit, another LMS, is free and currently only markets to individual professors. In addition to course management, Coursekit plans to offer students assistance in locating books and homework help, in the future. A significant difference between Coursekit and other LMS is their creation of a social network oriented around education.  Chegg, formerly a solely text rental organization, has rebranded the company into a social education platform. Although Chegg is not a LMS, some of the services offered are similar. Students can search texts associated with courses at their institution, utilize a homework help center and speak with a tutor in India, and buy and sell notes through Notehall. Based on Kolowich's description of three promising LMS-like services, Blackboard (the current majority LMS market shareholder) should be prepared for a new wave of competition.

Joshua Kim, the Director of Learning and Technology for the Master of Health Care Delivery Science program at Dartmouth College, often writes for Inside Higher Ed. In this article, Kim shares ten questions posed to him by Rachel Hanel, a student and employee at Kaplan University. Hanel presented ten questions to Kim based on his experience with learning management systems (LMS).  Kim believes higher education institutions should based their LMS selection off of the quality of the product, the quality of the company, and the size of the user community, not just price. Kim also points out the direct and indirect costs associated with each LMS must be evaluated before making a decision. Students are looking for an LMS utilized by faculty members, while faculty members have a wide range of requests from an LMS, making the selection of a LMS for a college or university difficult. A few products and services to watch break into the LMS market over the next few years are Instructure Canvas, OpenClass, and Coursekit, in addition to Moodle and Blackboard, whom already hold most of the market share. According to Kim, institutions should put education first when reviewing LMSs. College and university personnel, specifically those looking to switch or add a LMS, are the intended audience. 

PRWeb assists companies and organizations release news on their products and services, with extended reach through online searches. LoudCloud Systems, the creator of LoudCloud Learning Ecosystem, for Higher Education, promoted an enhanced version of their current product through PRWeb in July of 2012. The new LoudCloud Learning Ecosystem, for higher education, includes greater flexibility for teachers and administrators; a task centered design, a redesigned behavioral reader, and enhanced analytics on students, administration, and teachers. LoudCloud Systems establish themselves as an emerging leader in learning management systems in 2010, and has continued to impress the education industry with new products and upgrades. The learning solutions offered by LoudCloud are intuitive, collaborative, adaptive and intelligent. The system collects data on users and personalizes their learning experience based on each individual's learning styles. LoudCloud Learning Ecosystems, for Higher Education now offers more than 100 discreet rights, but also allows for segmented branding within one system for larger institutions.  LoudCloud Systems offers services for higher education and K-12 institutions. Administrators and information technology personnel are the intended audience for this article. The reader should remember LoudCloud wrote the article, with supervision by PRWeb. 

According to Patton, human resource departments tend to be one of the last areas within higher education to adopt new technologies. Over the past few years vendors have begun developing new products based on college and university needs, especially in the human resource area.  Most human resource departments have an enterprise resource planning system (ERP) or a Human Resource Information System (HRIS), which is used in conjunction with compatible, or sometimes not-compatible, vendor services. SunGard continues to offer more and more human resource services, including an effort certification system, which monitors and collects data on how many hours certain employees are spending on research, if their salary is paid through a grant. In the mid 2010s, SunGard and PeopleSoft partnered to create an applicant tracking system that offered three programs in one: a position description model, a performance management module, and an applicant-tracking model. While some improvements have been made, human resource departments need to embrace the new technologies, and utilize the offered services in the front of the office, as well as the back. Most of the examples within the article are large, state universities, such as Florida Atlantic University, Oklahoma City Community College, and the University of Utah. Duke University is mentioned, however, Duke is a large, elite university with more financial resources than most other private institutions. The question remaining is if the cost of human resource modules are justified at smaller institutions? Hopefully the future will bring options to colleges and universities with a few hundred employees, rather than a thousand. 

The chief privacy and security office at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Michael Corn, discusses the need for higher education to be less risk adverse. While the article is somewhat vague, anyone interested in general technology infrastructure for colleges and universities, has something to gain from reading it. Using his own experience to develop his theories, Corn explains faculty members and administrators need to re-evaluate their view on risk and how risk is accessed.  On most campuses, faculty members use third-party services without the knowledge or support of the institution. Using third-party vendors forces the faculty member to take on major personal and institutional risk, especially the security of data. Unfortunately, if the institution lacks updated technology, faculty members are put in a difficult situation. Colleges and universities are rather risk adverse. Corn argues colleges and universities need to re-access how risky some technologies truly are. The information technology department cannot transform the institution's culture on their own. All campus administrators, faculty, registrars must work together to be more transparent, accessible for students with special needs, thorough guidance for students, and increasingly accountable. When all members of the college community come together and work towards improved and "risky" technologies, the institution will benefit.

InCommon is a nonprofit group that offers software to colleges and universities with a shared standard allowing for secure single sign-on. Vendors collaborate with InCommon, allowing for seamless transmission of information from one college to a variety of vendors. Using InCommon allows institutions to streamline their different online services, simplifying the process for all users. The software is free, however, a $700 registration fee is required, in addition to an annual fee of $1,000 to $3,000 depending on the size of the institution. The real costs are associated with switching vendors compatible with InCommon and adding enough servers to back up the entire system. If a server goes down, all of the single sign-on services shut down as well, so reliable and back up servers are required. While InCommon certainly offers a useful product, colleges and universities have been reluctant to join. The initial cost of joining, switching vendors and updating servers can be very expensive. The University of Georgia, for example, has decided to use proprietary software, instead of InCommon, to save on cost. Other institutions are waiting until important vendors, such as Blackboard, join InCommon. Without key vendors on board, the costs cannot be justified. Even though InCommon has not been adapted on every college campus, the organization doubled its membership numbers every year between 2005 and 2010.  

Jeffery Young, a writer for The Chronicle of Higher Education, explains a new business venture for Internet2, a company providing superfast networks to colleges and universities. Internet2 recently announced partnerships with a variety of new companies in an effort to offer colleges and universities cloud services at reduced prices. The premise behind the new services, called Internet2 Net + Services, is to allow the 235 participating colleges and universities to access cloud services for a lower cost than they would normally receive as an individual institution. Companies involved in the new venture include Hewlett-Packard, SHI International, and Box. While Hewlett-Packard and SHI International are providing special offers on licensing terms and time bought on high-speed computers used through the internet, Box offers storage within the cloud.  The long-term cost savings for colleges and universities using Internet2 Net + Services could be rather substantial. Instead of having to invest in the services permanently, institutions can purchase additional capacity during peak times. Short-term rental of cloud services, at discounted rates, may have real financial impact on higher education, perhaps even enticing some to transition to using the cloud.

Marla Clark, an editor at EdTech magazine, covers the four most effective, and highest in priority, IT investments in the United States in 2012. Clark uses data from a variety of IT surveys, collecting information from more than 550 college and university IT administrators. The intended audience is anyone interested in technologies influencing higher education. The first technology described is the mobile application. More than 60% of the campuses participating in the survey embrace mobility within their IT structure. Public universities lead with more than 77% offering mobile apps in connection with the institution, with private schools at 67%. The second efficient technology is cloud adoption. While many colleges and universities have been slow to transition to cloud technologies, those that have, are utilizing the options more fully. Now institutions are moving calendars and learning management systems to the cloud, instead of just storage and archival materials. Integration of IT into classroom/course instruction is the third item on top of colleges and universities' priority list. 74% of the institutions participating in the survey indicated curriculum integration is a top priority for the next few years. Finally, almost exactly half of the colleges and universities surveyed believe massive open online courses are a viable course delivery module. Of the 50% that look favorably on massive open online classes, more than 60% are unsure of how to earn revenue using the technology.

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.

Chris Proulx, the President and CEO of eCornell, wrote an article featured in Forbes magazine. The first technological influence is the growth of online education within top tier schools. Proulx believes the second impact technology will have on higher education in 2013 is increased innovation affecting the "flipped classroom." Students no longer rely on faculty members to provide them with information. In this model, group discussions and activities are used during class time to strengthen the students understanding of the material while engaging them fully.  Hybrid programs are the third technological change influencing higher education in 2013. 2013 will bring a focus on hybrid programs, courses balanced on-campus and online. Great technological advances can be made to improve hybrid courses for students and faculty members. Proulx believes a race is on for a new instructional model within higher education during 2013.  The fourth technology is the need for a new classroom-learning model. As faculty continue to teach in a flipped classroom, the peer-to-peer and peer-to-faculty models of instruction must change.  Finally, the fifth influential technology impacting higher education in 2013 is the potential for tuition costs to decrease. Proulx believes as technologies improve, faculty will be able to reach more students using the same amount of effort as in the past. While these technologies may not exist yet, as they begin to develop, the cost of education will slowly begin to decrease. Tuition may not drop in 2013, but the industry is likely to see some financial shifts over the next few years, in reaction to advanced technologies.

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.

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?