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Wed., Feb. 16, 2005
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IN THIS ISSUE
Editor's Note: This is the final edition of eLearning Dialogue, which is changing to Technology-Enabled Teaching, featuring news, product updates, resource information, opinion, and peer recommendations for implementing the next level of the smart classroom. Look for the first edition March 2.
VIEWPOINT
NEWS & PRODUCT UPDATES
CASE STUDY
TECH NOTES
READER RESPONSE
Sponsors
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Viewpoint
Higher Education: The Typewriter Generation
and the Information Age
By Mark Gura and Bernard Percy
Higher education (including community colleges, four-year
colleges, universities, and adult education programs)
is facing two issues: low enthusiasm for the use of
technology in course development and delivery and a
lack of understanding about the way it should be used
to reshape educational programs. Begun in 1990, the Campus Computing Survey
(www.campuscomputing.net) is the largest continuing
study of information technology in American higher
education. This annual survey focuses on the use of
computing and information technology in higher
education. In the 2003 report Kenneth Green, founding
director, comments that he has found an increasing use
of technology to support instruction and the increasing
role of course and learning management software.
However, “few campuses provide recognition and reward
for faculty efforts at instructional integration … in
their review and promotion process.” This lack of
recognition and reward are all indication of the
struggle technology still faces to become
enthusiastically accepted in course development and
delivery in higher education.
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News & Product Updates
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Demand for e-Learning Applications Seen Fueling
Blackboard Growth
Noting e-learning applications ranks as a mission-critical
top priority on campuses, Blackboard announced it gained
80 new clients in the U.S. and abroad for its ASP
Services to host e-learning programs this past year.
"E-learning applications are now consistently rated as
the top three applications that are pivotal to the
academic mission of institutions," said Ahmar Abbas,
ASP Director at Blackboard. With the new clients, the
company lists more than 300 learning institutions, in
41 states domestically and 15 international countries
providing e-learning services hosted by Blackboard ASP.
The hosted systems are currently serving more than two
million students and faculty who have produced more
than 10 terabytes of course content and material-exceeding
the total digital capacity of print collections of
the Library of Congress.
Read
more
Manhattan School of Music Presents Jazz Concert
To showcase the distance learning capabilities for its
customized video conferencing system, the Manhattan
School of Music produced a live concert beamed to the
executive board of Polycom across the country in
Pleasanton, Calif. Polycom provided the New York-based
school with specifically tailored VSX 8000 group video
conferencing system with custom features for music
distance learning applications.
Read
more
ETS, eCollege, Joins Testing, Accreditation Services
ETS, the nonprofit educational testing organization,
and education platform developer eCollege will jointly
offer an online course evaluation solution to help
schools with accreditation benchmarking. eCollege
customers will be able to purchase access to ETS
academic assessment instruments, which include the
Student Instructional Report II (SIR II) for on-campus
learning and the e-SIR II for distance learning,
according to a joint announcement. The plan calls for
online delivery through the eCollege platform. In
addition to the current print version of SIR II, ETS
customers will be able to purchase the new Web-based
SIR II and e-SIR II products delivered through eCollege
technology. This offers ETS customers a fully hosted,
scalable and reliable online option.
Read
more
New Website Provides Distance Learning Resource for
Working Adults
SearchForClasses.com is a new Web portal targeting
working adults seeking information on education and
career options. This online service features
information on more than 100 accredited colleges and
universities (including both online and campus schools)
in the U.S. The Web content includes, a career
assessment test, information on financial aid,
discussion boards, and live assistance from “Career
Coaches,” according to an announcement for the new
service. The portal aims at the growing number of
students 25 and older. – all aimed at helping working
adults make the right decisions about advancing their
careers. Students 35 and older have risen from 823,000
in 1970 to approximately 2.9 million in 2001,
according to the National Center for Education
Statistics. By 2010, there will be about 6.5 million
students over the age of 25 attending college, the
announcement says, and notes that this year
approximately one-third of adults in the U.S.
participate in some formal learning.
Read
more
IBM Wiring S.F. State for Collaborative Computing
IBM is bringing its corporate Workplace product to
campus. Big Blue and San Francisco State Univeristy
signed a $2.3 million agreement to upgrade campus
communication technologies, providing unified e-mail,
calendaring, group collaboration and Web conferencing
to students, faculty and staff. Under the deal, SFSU
will purchase IBM's Workplace Collaboration Services
running on IBM eServer pSeries hardware. SFSU plans
for Workplace include setting up customized online
portals and collaborative applications for its 29,000
students, and 3,000 faculty and staff, as well as
18,000 additional users, said Jonathan Rood, SFSU
associate vice president for information technology.
The majority of SFSU students are urban commuters.
Read
more
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Case Study
Developing and Integrating Music, Digitally
By Anthony Brandt, Rice University
For years, teachers have used music appreciation
courses to bring a better understanding of music.
But despite advances in digital technology, music
appreciation courses today are taught pretty much the
same way they have been since the invention of the
hi-fi stereo: students read a textbook, then listen to
musical examples on recorded media. This process, however, is often an ineffective
learning method because by the time students hear the
music, they may have forgotten the particular concepts
they are supposed to be listening for.
Read
more
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Tech Notes
SunGard SCT Mobile Recruiting Solution for Microsoft
.NET Platform
SCT PocketRecruiter provides off-campus admissions
professionals with mobile access to the most current
information about prospective students is now available
for PDAs running Microsoft .NET, according to an
announcement by SunGard SCT. SCT PocketRecruiter 2.0,
built on .NET, provides wireless access to demographic,
educational and test score data that resides in an
institution’s administrative databases.
Read
more
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Reader Response
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From the Reader Response Forum
Support for Open Source Solutions?
My impression is that UNIX talent is required. Can anyone speak to the level
of support necessary to implement an OPEN SOURCE solution. -- Posted by Ralph
Fasano, Rhode Island School of Design
Response: Hi Ralph, it depends on the OS system. Unix talent is definitly not
needed to implement Moodle, it runs fine on Windows, even has a Windows installer.While
much of the talk on the Moodle forums involves folks who are coding new modules
for Moodle which requires extra levels of talent, simply running a standard
Moodle install is no more difficult than running a standard WebCT, Blackboard,
etc. install.You can even get a fully hosted supported system where all you
do is run courses, via Moodle.com, for much less than hosted solutions for the
other CMSs. -- Posted by michaelp
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