In the last month three universities have licensed EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS) to allow campus users to search across their respective databases, library catalogs, and institutional repositories.
At the CT2010 Executive Summit on July 19 in Boston, the morning session was dedicated to a scan of the IT environment in higher education; the afternoon would focus participants’ attention on leadership issues. Discussions suggested that the trend to exclude top IT leaders from the president’s inner strategic circle was premature and perhaps ill advised. And that CIOs who represent their jobs as primarily or exclusively maintaining IT operations may be missing significant national trends and changes.
Online advising programs can provide critical academic services to distance learning students who otherwise might feel untethered from their schools.
The Association for Authentic, Experiential, and Evidence-Based Learning (AAEEBL) had its first world conference this last week in Boston, co-located with Campus Technology 2010. The group of learning and assessment experts is organized around its members' interest in ePortfolios.
In the coming year, Boston's Northeastern University will try a new search technology for its library collections.
Using a three-year, $1.4 million grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a team of faculty at the University of Arizona in Tucson is building a new Facebook program intended to help middle and high school students learn how to teach themselves.
In May 2009, the US Department of Education released a meta-analysis of effectiveness studies of online, face-to-face, and blended learning models. The analysis found that online learning produced better student outcomes than face-to-face classes, and that blended learning offered an even “larger advantage” over face-to-face. Technology leaders at the University of Central Florida were not surprised.
A project out of the University of Virginia to get young children comfortable with engineering has been selected as one of 10 winners in a MacArthur Digital Media and Learning Competition. The project, called Fab@School, is intended to teach K-12 students about mathematical analysis and modeling, digital fabrication, and engineering by allowing them to fabricate 3D copies of objects that they've designed themselves.
Marist College’s Director of Academic Technology and eLearning, a Campus Technology 2010 keynoter, talked with CT about potential disruptive changes ahead that may not only alter how we use technology for teaching and learning, but might turn higher education infrastructure on its ear.
Ed tech developer SoftChalk has released an update to SoftChalk, an authoring suite for instructional content. The company also announced that it will be expanding the capabilities of the Web-based system further this summer through a new premium option.