News Update Tuesday February 7 2006
CT News Update:
An Online Newsletter from Campus Technology
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News for Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2006
* Big Business Backs Bush Technology Higher Education Plan
* eCollege Named (Again) to Forbes Fastest Growing Tech List
* U. Mass Testing Total Switch-Out to IP-based Telephony
* Higher Ed Group Helps Afghan Distance Education Project
* Ithaca College Junior Wins Contest for Films Shot on Cell Phone
* Well That’s a Nifty Idea—Now Let’s Turn it Into Schlock ASAP
* ONLINE RESOURCES
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Big Business Backs Bush Technology Higher Education Plan
Groups representing big business came out in support of
President Bush’s call for an American competitiveness
initiative in his State of the Union address last week.
A group calling itself “Tapping America’s Potential,”
which represents 15 industries ranging from the Business-Higher
Education Forum to the Telecommunications Industry Association,
said a renewed focus on science and math education is essential
to the U.S.’s ability to maintain economic growth.
"The President clearly understands that in order to keep
America atop the world economy, U.S. companies need a talented
and capable workforce to develop the innovations of tomorrow,”
said Arthur Ryan, chairman of the education and workforce task
force of the Business Roundtable, a TAP member. Last July, TAP
released a report setting the goal of doubling the number of U.S.
science, technology, engineering and mathematics graduates with
bachelor's degrees by 2015.
TAP said meeting the goal could be helped through programs
such as the National Science Foundation’s Science, Technology,
Engineering and Mathematics Talent Expansion Program and by
offering programs such as a Professional Science Masters to
encourage college graduates to pursue fields outside of academia
that combine science and/or math with industry needs.
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eCollege Named (Again) to Forbes Fastest Growing Tech Firms
Forbes magazine named eCollege Inc. to its annual list
of the 25 fastest growing technology companies for the
third year in a row. eCollege, the only education
technology firm on the list, moved from twelfth
fastest-growing to the eighth fastest growing company,
according to Forbes. Companies on the Forbes fastest
list must have a minimum of $25 million in sales and
must have been profitable over the last 12 months.
Companies also must have had sales growth of 10 percent
a year or better for the last five years and consensus
earnings forecasts of at least 10 percent annualized
growth over the next three to five years.
U. Mass Testing Total Switch-Out to IP-based Telephony
The University of Massachusetts wants to replace the
existing PBX-based switched telephone service for its
30,000 campus users with an Internet telephony-based
solution. The school is running a trial using technology
from Cedar Point Communications, Inc. Rosio Alvarez,
Ph.D., executive director of information technologies
for U. Mass., said the school was “interested in trialing
new technology that might help us meet the demands of
converging data and voice and other advanced multimedia
services in an IP environment.”
The project will test the ability of Cedar Point’s
Safari C Cubed system to replace the existing PBX
and trunking technology within the UMass network with
SIP-based residential devices in dormitories. SIP
(Session Initiation Protocol) is a signaling protocol
for Internet conferencing, telephony, events notification
and instant messaging.
Time-Division Multiplex (TDM) and Voice over IP (VoIP)
applications for university offices will also be tested.
Higher Ed Group Helps Afghan Distance Education Project
The U.S. Agency for International Development awarded a
$38 million grant to a consortium of Indiana University,
the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and the Academy
for Educational Development, a Washington, D.C.-based agency
that specializes in international educational programming,
to help restore the educational system in Afghanistan.
Within two weeks, the consortium will send a team to
Afghanistan to work on the project, which involves
working closely with the country's Ministry of Higher
Education, USAID, the U.S. embassy and a variety of
non-governmental organizations. Much of the project's
work will involve improving the information technology
infrastructure at 16 teacher education programs in the
country to provide a way to deliver courses to education
majors without having to navigate the paperwork-laden
obstacles of international travel.
Terrence C. Mason, who directs IU’s Center for Social
Studies and International Education, said “with the
political events over the last two decades, there have
been huge difficulties for schools. Teachers were dismissed;
they fled the country. Now, refugees are returning. Part of
the effort at stabilizing the country involves restoring the
educational system, which requires qualified and competent
teachers.”
Ithaca College Junior Wins Contest for Films Shot on Cell Phone
Mike Potter, an Ithaca College junior and triple-major from
Bloomfield, Colo., won first place in a contest designed to
pick the best feature film shot entirely on cell-phone. His
movie, called “Cheat,” was selected from among 178 entries
by a panel of professional judges sponsored by the school’s
Roy H. Park School of Communications. The CellFlix Festival
invited high school and college students to shoot a 30-second
movie on their cell phone for a chance to win the grand prize of
$5,000.
"Cheat” features a humorous interaction between Potter’s
grandparents.
Dianne Lynch, dean of the Park School of Communications,
said the entries “did exactly what great films do: They
captured your attention, they evoked an emotional response,
they presented a complete story.”
CellFlix contest “proves that today's young media makers have
no problem moving from one platform to another,” Lynch added.
Judging was “blind,” she emphasized, meaning the final-tier
judges had no information about who submitted the entry or
what school they were from.
“Cheat,” as well as the submissions from the nine other finalists,
can be viewed at http://www.cellflixfestival.org.
Well That’s a Nifty Idea—Now Let’s Turn it Into Schlock ASAP
Smartphones Technologies, a mobile content publisher specializing
in “custom celebrity and entertainment content,” has acquired
rights from several big university sports programs to use images
and video of their cheerleaders for replay on cell phones. Using
the slogan, “You’ve seen them on the sidelines, now you can have
them on your phone,” the firm said it has acquired the rights to
photos of the cheerleaders as mobile wallpapers, exclusive voice
ring-tones, ring-back tones, and video ring-tones featuring cheer
leaders, mascots and marching bands.
"Cheerleaders, mascots and marching bands are a logical extension
of our college sports content," said Smarthones founder Mike Merrill.
"Between the tech savvy college students and the incredibly loyal
fans and alumni, we think college related mobile content will be
a gold mine for both carriers and universities."
The firm is working with athletic departments from the University
of Mississippi, Florida State, and Kansas State University. "I can't
tell you how excited the K-State Athletic Department
is that our cheerleaders are part of such an amazing opportunity,"
said Chad Kimmel from the Kansas State University.
"They are thrilled to be representing the Wildcats in this new
digital medium, and we are thrilled that we can provide this
to all of K-State's loyal fans."
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Online Resources
White Paper: Mobility Initiatives on Campus
Sponsored by Gateway
http://info.101com.com/default.asp?id=22068
White Paper: World Without Wires: A 'Virtual' Roundtable
Sponsored by Meru Networks
http://info.101com.com/default.aspx?id=22448
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