News 02-27-2001
TLT Group to Present Featured Track at Syllabus
Steve Gilbert, President of the TLT Group, will be presenting a featured track
at the Syllabus spring2001 conference to be held April 5-8 in Cincinnati, Ohio.
The track will focus on Virtual Teaching, Learning, and Technology Centersó(V)TLTCs.
As technology alters work patterns and communication/collaboration paths on
campus, the challenge is to re-map these changed patterns and paths. A (V)TLTCs
is part of that re-mapping of the campus. But it is not just a map of where
things happen; often, it is also a "place itself," albeit a virtual one, on
the Web.
Questions for consideration will include: What's the current situation with
(V)TLTCs? Should your campus create one? What d'es it take to support a (V)TLTC?
The TLT Group will join with academic associates of TLT to lead attendees in
carefully articulated breakout sessions. Two of the sessions will focus on a
specific audience: first CAOs, deans, and other administrators; and then librarians,
faculty development, and technology professionals. A third session will focus
on getting support for a (V)TLTC, followed by an hour of case studies at the
end of the day. The leaders of this track are seasoned practitioners, offering
an opportunity to sample and learn about best ways to support faculty as they
inte-grate technology into their teaching and learning in deeper and broader
ways than ever.
For detailed session descriptions and online registration, visit www.syllabus.com.
Also, be sure to check out the conference brochure in the February issue of
Syllabus magazine.
Jackson State University Unveils $20 Million e-Center
Jackson State University (JSU) recently announced plans to create a major technology
research and incubation center in Mississippi, a move made possible by a $17
million donation to the university by Allstate Insurance Company. The JSU e-Center,
scheduled to open in spring 2001, is to be located in the former Allstate Sunbelt
Support Center in Jackson. The 192,600 square foot facility will be used not
only for academic purposes, but also as an incubator for technology-based businesses
moving into Mississippi. JSU has created the Mississippi e-Center Foundation,
a non-profit organization, which will own the facility and lease most of it
to JSU for academic purposes. The balance will be leased to technology-related
businesses leveraging the JSU tech-nology base. Allstate will transfer the facility,
which is valued at more than $20 million, to the Foundation in exchange for
$3 million. The gift represents the largest single donation to any of Mississippi's
historically black colleges.
Teachers Honored for Technology Innovation
Two community college professors whose creative use of technology has enhanced
learning for disabled, non-traditional, and pre-college-aged students have been
selected as leaders in their field for 2001. The two will receive the first-ever
David R. Pierce Faculty Technology Award, sponsored by the Microsoft Corporation
in cooperation with the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC).
Vicki Duggan, instructor in the Information Technology Institute of Montgomery
College, Md., and Michelle R. Wild, instructor in the Special Education and
Computer departments of Coastline Community College, Calif., were selected in
a nationwide competition among the over 1,100 U.S. community, junior, and technical
colleges. Professor Duggan is working to bring both older adults and elementary
school aged girls into high-demand Information Technology fields. Professor
Wild is an innovator in the design and integration of online instruction and
has become an expert in the use of technology to rehabilitate brain-injured
adults.
Designed to recognize exemplary teaching models, the Pierce award includes
a $5,000 stipend for each of the awardees and national recognition at the AACC's
annual meeting, scheduled April 4-7 in Chicago, Ill.
New Technology to Run Future Wireless Handset Devices According to Cahners'
In-Stat Group, a high-tech market research firm, sales of Internet-ready wireless
phones will surpass 1 billion units annually by 2004. This growth will be fueled
by consumer demand for new applications on Internet access devices and handheld
devices that combine everything from streaming video and audio, location-based
services, speech recognition, and mobile e-commerce.
Texas Instruments is putting its money behind industry efforts to support this
trend. The company recently announced plans to invest up to $100 million, over
the next 12-18 months, to boost development of high-performance software applications
that use TI's DSP-based OMAP technology. The funds for this investment program
are in addition to the $1.7 billion TI already spends annually on R&D.
The goal of the OMAP Investment Program is to fuel access to high-quality mobile
Internet services, by helping software developers to create applications like
digital audio, mobile video streaming, mobile commerce, location-based services
and voice recognition. OMAP is a combination of software and a dual-core hardware
architecture built with DSP and RISC processors. For the consumer, this means
high performance, long battery life and the flexibility needed to support both
current and future standards. The OMAP architecture supports all 2G, 2.5G and
3G wireless standards and is compatible with TI's DSP-based digital baseband,
used in more than 60 percent of today's digital wireless handsets.
Alumni Relations Benefit From Real-Time Internet Services
SunGard BSR, an operating unit of SunGard and a provider of services and software
for advancement, announced today that Williams College has gone live with the
first component of Web Community, an online suite of applications that lets
alumni view, update, and share personal and philanthropic information over the
Internet. Friends and alumni of Williams can now make credit card gifts on-line
from a secure site supported by the application.
Web Community, licensed by eleven institutions of higher education since its
launch in May, helps organizations deliver services to alumni, allowing them
to make gifts, register, and pay for events or memberships, update biographical
information, perform directory searches, and participate in community-building
activities such as career networking --all in real time.
For more information, visit www.sungardbsr.com
XanEdu to Sponsor TLT Group Workshops
XanEdu recently announced an alliance with the Teaching, Learning and Technology
(TLT) Group, the technology and change service for higher education institutions.
XanEdu, publisher of online course material for the higher education market,
will sponsor a 12-city nationwide education series entitled "A Vision Worth
Working Toward: Connected Education and Collaborative Change."
The workshops began on February 20 in New York City and will be held in key
higher education markets including Washington, DC, San Francisco Bay Area, Los
Angeles, Orlando, Miami, Chicago, Detroit, Houston, Dallas, Austin and Boston.
The TLT Group will provide the leaders and the "curriculum" for this
series to help faculty and other academic decision makers to implement new ways
of using technology to improve teaching and learning. Participants will learn
about planning, organizational, and evaluation approaches as well as services
and resources from the TLT Group, XanEdu,and others. Presentations will also
be made by faculty members who are already using technology -- including XanEdu's
products -- in new ways to increase their students' learning.
For more information, visit www.xanedu.com
or www.tltgroup.org.
