News Update 04-22-2003
Sponsor: Grants for SMART Board(TM) interactive whiteboards
Join the ranks of innovative colleges and universities using the SMART Board
interactive whiteboard to engage students and enhance learning.
—Touch the surface to control any computer application
—Write notes in electronic ink
—Save notes and images to a computer file
SMART Board products can also be used to enhance your distance education courses.
Order a free video CD-ROM to see the SMART Board interactive whiteboard in action!
Reply before May 2, 2003 to also receive a FREE 12-disc CD case. Grants worth
20% - 70% of the suggested list price for SMART products are available through
the SMARTer Kids(TM) Foundation.
Visit http://info.101com.com/default.asp?id=1124
U. Texas, Stanford Join to Tap Silicon Valley Expertise, Capital
The Institute for Innovation, Creativity, and Capital (IC2), a tech incubator
at the University of Texas-Austin (UT), and Stanford University announced a
joint project to fund the research, development, and commercialization of new
technologies. The project is being backed by a $6 million gift from IC2 founder
George Kozmetsky, executive associate for economic affairs at UT and a co-founder
of Teledyne Inc. The money will fund the Kozmetsky Global Collaboratory (KGC),
which will pursue research in using interactive games in education and training,
as well as nurturing entrepreneurs, capital pools, and expertise in Silicon
Valley.
Specialized labs will be created at KCG, including the Global Knowledge Design
Collaboratory, to be led by IC2 director John Butler, Stanford communications
professor Clifford Nass, and IC2 senior fellow Syed Shariq; and the Digital
Media Collaboratory, to be led by Alex Cavalli, IC2's deputy director, Roy Pea,
director of Stanford's Center for Innovation in Learning, Byron Reeves, professor
of communication at Stanford, and Ellen Wartella, dean of UT's College of Communication.
For more information, visit: www.ic2.org
or http://mediax.stanford.edu
Sponsor: Roy Pea of Stanford University Kicks Off Syllabus2003
Syllabus2003, the 10th annual summer conference on education technology, July
27-31, opens with a keynote by Roy Pea, Professor of Education and the Learning
Sciences at Stanford University. Dr. Pea has spent his career exploring how
technology can transform learning and teaching in the classroom. Focusing on
high performance learning environments, he'll describe his experiences at Stanford's
Wallenberg Hall and elsewhere in enhancing place-based learning. Don't miss
out on all the tremendous speakers, sessions, networking, and educational opportunities
this summer. Make plans now to attend Syllabus2003 at the San Jose Marriott
and Stanford University. To register and for complete details, go to http://info.101com.com/default.asp?id=1042.
Walsh College Approves New Information Technology Degree
The Board of Trustees of Michigan-based business school Walsh College approved
the addition of a Bachelor of Science in Business Information Technology (BSBIT).
Program director Michael McGill said the degree, "retains a focus on business
that responds to the changing needs of the information technology field …" He
said degree holders would get a leg up on the competition via an "early introduction
to project management and business process engineering." Initial coursework
will be followed by technical coursework in information security, database design
and development, strategic analysis, and project management. The college's information
assurance curriculum has been designated as a center of excellence by the National
Security Agency.
For more information, visit: www.walshcollege.edu
GMU Engineering School Names ObjectVideo's CEO to Board
George Mason University's School of Information Technology and Engineering
(IT&E) named ObjectVideo CEO Clara Conti as a member of its advisory board.
Conti's company develops intelligent video surveillance software for physical
security applications. The school's advisory board, which consists of senior-level
corporate executives from IT companies, was established to strengthen relationships
between the school and its corporate partners, George Mason said. The School
of IT&E claims to be the first engineering school in the United States to focus
its scholarship primarily on IT and math-based engineering, as opposed to traditional
physical, material-based engineering. It was also the first to offer a doctoral
degree in information technology. OjbectVideo was founded in 1998 by a team
of former DARPA scientists whose expertise in artificial intelligence and "computer
vision" provided the nucleus for the company. Its products use computer vision
technology to boost the capabilities of video surveillance systems.
Redundancy Alert: Here Comes CollegeLuv.com
MatchNet plc, a provider of online personal ads, announced the launch of CollegeLuv.com
(www.collegeluv.com ), an interactive
dating site designed for college students. The site was designed specifically
for college students, its founders say, with tools for searching by school name
and major emphasis of study. "Looking for a Science major from Cal Tech or MIT?
How about an English major from Michigan? No problem. Just type in the details
and you're on your way," says one of MatchNet's marketing lines. Company chairman
J'e Shapira says that with 42 percent of college students primarily using the
Internet to communicate socially, the service launches with a large, potential
market.
Meetings, Conferences, Events in Higher Education
—The Electronic Portfolio Consortium (ePortConsortium), a collaboration
of select higher education and IT institutions working to create software for
an electronic portfolio environment, will hold its next meeting today, April
22, at the eCollege headquarters in Denver, Colo. The objective of the meeting
is to further define and identify interoperability and transportability requirements
for ePortfolios.
For more information, contact Kristi Emerson at (303) 873-3788.
—Information Literacy: Achieving Essential Collaboration.
Sponsored by the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) and The
TLT Group. April 28-May 16, 2003. This workshop will help participants develop
institution-wide collaboration for the most effective, undergraduate information-literacy
programs. Topics include overcoming barriers to effective collaboration among
academic professionals (including but not limited to librarians and faculty
members); forging a common agenda for linking information literacy to student
learning; and best practices of information literacy programming.
For more information, visit: www.tltgroup.org/events/onlineworkshops/info.htm
or www.tltgroup.org/ilws2registration.htm