Endicott College EDL762

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 author of this article is a writer for University Business, an online higher education publication. The article summarizes how lectures can not only be recorded digitally but also streamed live over the internet, with minimal effort by participants. Lecture capture systems (LCS) give the ability to slice and dice archived recordings into more manageable and meaningful segments. The author shares how as some lecture capture solutions have changed to software or web-based platforms, the definition is being stretched to include content faculty are producing at home, or even recordings of hybrid class sessions capturing both the in-class and online activity. Users see a partitioned screen displaying the presentation material and video feed, along with navigation options. Although video of the professor is thought to enhance distance learning sessions, it is usually skipped when the result is not interactive. In some situations, a video is used to display a demonstration, as often happens in medical classes. The author stresses that the audio is extremely important and if it is not great quality, it reduces the usefulness. Editing can be done to add title slides, remove dead time, or eliminate lessons that might have made sense during class but could be considered meaningless afterward. Long lectures can also be broken into shorter segments for students to use as study guides. Overall, the author suggests that faculty should keep the student as a user in mind when developing content. A helpful checklist is provided for administrators who are considering how to implement lecture capture: What is the institution's goal for having a lecture capture system? What needs are evident through observation of faculty? How involved will the IT staff have to be in training and using the system? Can faculty members operate it themselves? Will the system integrate with a course management system? Is the system scalable? How scalable does it need to be? Or is portability better? Wha

The author of this article is the Assistant Dean of Academic Administration at the College of Computing and Digital Media at DePaul University. This article focuses on the benefits of lecture capture for in-class and online students. The author states that this tool changes classroom sessions for those in traditional classes and replaces classroom lectures for online courses. Increasing the interactivity in lecture captures can improve student engagement and learning outcomes as the seven principles for good practice in undergraduate education is similar to good practice in lecture capture. This system captures video of the instructor, two whiteboards, and any information displayed on the instructor's computer, including PowerPoint presentations, Excel spreadsheets, and other software. The author mentions in a study of 29,078 in-class students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which used lecture capture to augment their classroom experience, 82 percent of the students would prefer a course in which lecture content is recorded, and 60 percent were willing to pay extra to have this technology available to them. Students cited the benefits of: making up for a missed class, watching lectures on demand, improving retention of class materials, improving test scores, and reviewing material as a complement to in-class interactions. To improve actual learning outcomes, the author suggests that instruction using lecture capture should include interactive discussions and activities and that successful course lecture capture requires a well-planned strategy. She encourages administrators to: provide a lecture capture system, define policies for use, and train faculty and students. The author cautions that faculty are educators and need to concentrate on the content and presentation, warning that they should not be expected to become technical experts. The article concludes that data which demonstrates significant increases in student learning will be a motivating fact

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

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

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

The author is a professor of Information Systems Management at Duquesne University. This article seems to have an intended audience of future technology professionals in higher education. The article begins with an overview of how large technology organizations such as Dell, HP, ISM, Sun, Hitachi, and Fujitsu have introduced green and sustainable initiatives. The author explains the difference between "green" and "sustainable". He differentiates that "green" is generally understood to mean friendly to the environment and energy efficient, while sustainable implies planning and in¬vesting in a technology infrastructure that serves the needs of today and the future, while conserving resources and saving money. These steps are stated in general terms throughout the article and could be considered as a guide for administrators looking to move their institution to "green IT." The recommended steps include the following: identify and prioritize the goals of a green IT initiative, assess the current situation relative to high¬ priority goals, find and execute "quick wins", and craft and communicate an action plan. The author also discusses energy efficiency improvement measures, which can range from a series of simple and inexpensive ac¬tions to much more expensive infrastructure upgrades. The author also discusses potential challenges, such as significant increases in power consumption in data centers since 2000. The article also identifies several areas of opportunity for improved energy efficiency, and encourages future leaders of higher education to demonstrate a sense of commitment to these practices through their actions. He argues that building a strong sense of awareness of green and sustainable practices may produce innovative ideas for conservation of energy and preserving the environment.

Mobile learning (referred to as "m-learning" in the article) is considered as the next generation of e-learning using mobile technologies. Students' awareness of such technology is one of the key areas for it to be successful. This study aimed to investigate students' awareness and requirements of mobile learning services among Malaysian students in the higher education environment. The authors reviewed mobile learning services as a new vital platform for the higher education environment and the requirements for utilizing it. It provides information about the current state of students' awareness about mobile learning services. The article also covers possible mobile device limitations to consider, including: memory size, battery life, high line cost and small screen. These limitations can hinder using mobile technology widely in learning, but the authors point to Corlett et al. (2005) directions to extend the wireless network across the campus and to redesign software as well as hardware for mobile learning purposes. According to the authors, both the environment and the infrastructure in higher education is appropriate to incorporate mobile learning, as long as necessary adaptations are made. The results also demonstrate that students have adequate knowledge and awareness to use such technology in their education environment. The authors caution that the barriers and obstacles that could be faced during the actual use of mobile learning should be considered. This article would be most helpful for information technology professionals who are making decisions regarding mobile learning and technology implementation.

The author is a faculty member at the City University of New York. Through this article, she describes her interest in a question based on a study that was conducted with a college-wide committee of faculty, administrators, and staff in a survey method to discover the priorities of the faculty, in further development of excellence in teaching and learning. Of the 155 survey respondents, 22 selected a question, "In what ways do we weigh the political, ethical and economic implications of technological platforms against their pedagogical potential, and how can we model these kinds of complex decisions for our students?". Through this question, the author points out an existing challenge associated with the moral dilemmas emerging from the current increase of technological innovation, including the abuse of technology, as seen through revealing video postings, invasion of privacy, cyber-bullying, and identity theft. She continues to bring up that these challenges cause a harm to society and controversy among stakeholders. The author suggests that a new set of rules, laws, policies, and procedures should be created to guide and protect the rights of individuals in this new technological environment. The author recommends that higher education faculty and administration should take a leadership role in the study of applications of ethics in higher education. The author introduces two previously proposed bills, Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA, 2011) and Protect Intellectual Property (IP) Act of 2011, both of which were rejected by the American public because of the fear of censorship. According to the article, the 112th Congress postponed action on both bills. The conflict addressed by the two bills addresses financial accountability issues. Once settled, the bills will set the tone for how the next generation, of high school and college graduates will address copyright and intellectual property issues. The author proposes that administrators and faculty should guide the

The author is a well-known editor and writer for the Chronicle of Higher Education and has written on a wide range of topics. This article summarizes how recent changes at Arizona State University (ASU), with a focus on online learning, technology, and innovation have come with a number of impressive accomplishments. Some of these achievements include: an increase in freshman to sophomore retention, a rise in the amount of research conducted, as well as an increase in the number of bachelor degree graduates from STEM fields. Changing the culture of their student body, has created a more diverse and accessible environment as they have become more ethnically and economically representative of their surrounding community. The president of the university, Michael Crow, points to the fact that enrollment growth is a function of their mission. One question that the author poses is: will this new model sustain? The author explains how all administrative innovations and new initiatives at ASU are based on the data the university collects from its students and from other feeder schools, such as community colleges. Some of these initiatives include, teaching and learning-based courses, where students work on projects where they solve real problems for a local community and courses are held in machine and tool-filled "studios" for classes. The president of Arizona State University seems to be a visionary who is changing the image of what a large research university should be. This article would be most useful for leaders of institutions looking to transform their mission and vision, or higher education leaders who want to incorporate innovative ideas.

The author of this opinion article is a professor of educational technology and distance learning at the University of Alaska. This article describes the significant implications of the new version of the internet, also known as the "semantic web" for education. Three areas the author believes will be most affected are: knowledge construction, personal learning network maintenance, and personal educational administration. This information would be most helpful to senior-level administrators in higher education who make large-scale decisions regarding their college or university's technology. Under Web 3.0, the author predicts that personal learning networks (PLNs) will be built primarily around subjects, instead of services. The author goes on to describe how personal learning agents will identify relevant information from any source that is accessible and provide information on exactly what students and faculty desire to learn. The semantic web makes it possible for the internet to become an effective and focused information resource that can be tailored for specific content area objectives.The semantic web has the potential to challenge traditional ideas about the institution providing all of the knowledge to students by itself and instead connects information between institutions. The author anticipates that at some point, institutions will describe courses and degrees semantically, to help their own internal functioning, but with the effect of making many parts of education somewhat comparable across institutions. This article encourages faculty, staff, and students to join the discussion about semantic web in order to help Web 3.0 developers shape a tool useful and connected to the higher education environment.

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.

This article is written by a staff reporter for a higher education technology blog. She shares information from the results of an annual survey on higher-education computing, The Campus Computing Project survey. This survey asked Information Technology administrators at 543 colleges and universities questions about mobile applications and investments in campus technology. The main topics covered in this article are: how campus information-technology officials face fewer budget cuts in their departments, their opinions of the competition for college and university business from learning-management-system companies, and the uncertain views of massive open online courses (referred to as MOOCs). A majority of campus information-technology officers agreed that MOOC's offer a capable model for the "effective delivery" of instruction online. This article also reports that the study revealed that more than two-thirds of those surveyed indicated they were uncertain about whether MOOC's offer a solid business model for campuses to "realize new revenues". The author shares how survey results pointed to the increasing competition between MOOC providers like Udacity and Coursera and that the market for companies that sell learning-management systems (LMS) is becoming more competitive as well. The number of survey respondents that use Blackboard's learning-management system had dropped from 71 percent (in 2006) to 45 percent (as of 2012). Other LMS companies, such as Desire2Learn, Moodle, Sakai, and Instructure's Canvas have been more successful as a result. The author shared that although budget cuts in technology departments are going down, 27 percent of survey respondents reported budget cuts this year, compared with 50 percent in 2009. However the author shared that public institutions may still remain at-risk for budget cuts. This information would be useful for higher education technology professionals, particularly those who are making decisions related to technol

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 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.

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.

This is a prezi by Laura Taylor, listing the stages required to sustain and integrate technology into teaching and learning. Taylor illustrates that while this is a complex endeavor, technology is now a central feature of student learning, and is constantly changing and evolving. As a result it is vital to constantly evaluate and assess learning spaces. When all stakeholders acknowledge the value of technology, educators will be more likely to implement it in their course work. The challenges however range from teacher training to the alignment of technology to learning goals. These problems can be surmounted with both technical and administrative support. For successful integration of technology, teachers should be given time to adjust and provided access to technical support. When integrated successfully, technology produces motivated learners and skilled confident staff. This prezi is for the benefit of institutions looking for resources on integrating technology into learning programs.

Steven Bell offers his perceptions and explanation of the terms "sustaining innovation" and "disruptive innovations". "Sustaining innovations" represent practices that fit into the existing structure and practices of institutions even if they disrupt the standard methods of operation, but can however be adapted into the institution. "Disruptive innovations" on the other hand cannot be adapted into existing structure, but require the adoption or creation of new models and skills. Bell cites mobile phones as a form of "disruptive innovation" that could not function with the requirements of fixed lines, but with improved quality eventually became more vital than the fixed lines. The danger of "disruptive innovation" is that their threatening impact is unnoticeable until it is too late and they dramatically alter the way things function. Bell also uses the recent Google Apps for Education as another example of "disruptive innovation". At first there were doubts about its ability to replace Microsoft office, but that is what is happening today. This article is a warning to not underestimate the power of new ideas, developments or technologies.

This is a valuable directory of 150 learning and performance tools. The learning platforms are listed in alphabetic order, beginning with numbers, and ending at xylene content management system. It includes all the popular and well-known management systems such as Moodle, Blackboard, Instructure Canvas, Desire2Learn and Haiku learning management system. A bright yellow star precedes all free systems. This is a valuable page for anyone interesting in the market for a learning management system or looking for information on what is available.