Information Technology Services

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2010-03-04T14:34:00.001-06:00

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As Grants Run Out, Universities Pony Up Cash for OpenCourseWare

2010-03-03T09:36:00.000-06:00

It's been a good month for people who worry about the sustainability of open-education projects.
First, a Brigham Young University study found that offering free online access to distance-education course materials doesn't hurt paid enrollment, giving a boost to those who think the best business model for publishing

The Millennials: Confident. Connected. Open to Change

2010-02-24T19:53:00.000-06:00

Generations, like people, have personalities, and Millennials - the American teens and twenty-somethings who are making the passage into adulthood at the start of a new millennium - have begun to forge theirs: confident, self-expressive, liberal, upbeat and open to change.

Google's brilliant new plan to provide super-speedy Internet access

2010-02-19T09:39:00.001-06:00

Last week, Google announced that it plans to launch an "experimental" broadband network in several cities across the country. In other words, Google will become an ISP-it will provide Internet access to a small number of customers (50,000 to 500,000, depending on the cities it chooses), serving as an alternative to the broadband service offered by phone and cable companies. The news itself wasn't much of a surprise. For years, Google has been buying up "dark fiber"-extremely fast fiber-optic lines that were built during the Internet boom of the late '90s and had since been lying fallow-and observers had expected that the search company would do something with it soon. Still, the scale of Google's plans is shocking. The company wants to build home Internet connections that run at 1 gigabit per second. That's 100 or 200 times faster than the connection you're using to read this story.

The Higher Education Hedgehog

2010-02-17T10:30:00.000-06:00

Electronic portfolios, or ePortfolios, are greatly underestimated. Portfolios, in combination with Web 2.0 capabilities, and implemented by following the best exemplars of institutional transformation around portfolio-based learning design, can lead institutions from �good to great.�

Leveraging Technology to Increase Enrollment, Capacity, and Revenues

2010-02-11T15:01:00.000-06:00

Are you watching all the for-profit universities' stocks soar as their online programs grow by double-digit percentages?
Have you been reading about private equity firms buying failed private colleges and 'preserving the mission,' but developing online programs? Do you wonder how the University of Phoenix grew to more than 400,000 students? Do you believe that you could develop online programs, market them nationally, capture a small share of those online students, and add millions to your bottom line?
In today's economy-such thoughts are understandable. Colleges need more students and cash and lucrative online programs to grow. Why not go for it? Forget it! You are far too late, and likely much too small, to think big now. But, you do have opportunities, just probably not big ones. You also have imperatives. Big may be out, but online is in.

Sorry, Google: I'm just not buzzed about Buzz

2010-02-11T09:15:00.000-06:00

In case you missed the announcement yesterday, Buzz is Google's latest attempt to drop a 16-ton weight on the heads of Facebook and Twitter [3], primarily by combining elements of both. Using Gmail as a starting point, it lets you follow and unfollow, share your deep insights about what you had for lunch, post pix, videos, links, etc. You can connect it to Picasa, Flicker, Google Chat, Google Reader, and even Twitter (though only in one direction -- your Tweets show up on Buzz, but your "Buzzes" don't show up on Twitter).

Furloughed From San Diego State U., CIO Flies Relief Missions to Haiti

2010-02-09T09:34:00.001-06:00

The San Diego State University chief information officer has been flying people and supplies back and forth to Haiti since last week. Now, as he talks to a reporter by phone from Florida before stepping into �the bird� for yet another

Social media use on the rise, but fewer young people are blogging

2010-02-08T14:10:00.000-06:00

The use of social-networking web sites among young Americans continues to climb, with nearly three-fourths of American teens now using these sites. But fewer teens and young adults are blogging now than four years ago, and the number of those who use Twitter is still very low.

Microsoft's Creative Destruction

2010-02-04T10:58:00.001-06:00

AS they marvel at Apple's new iPad tablet computer, the technorati seem to be focusing on where this leaves Amazon's popular e-book business. But the much more important question is why Microsoft, America's most famous and prosperous technology company, no longer brings us the future, whether it's tablet computers like the iPad, e-books like Amazon's Kindle, smartphones like the BlackBerry and iPhone, search engines like Google, digital music systems like iPod and iTunes or popular Web services like Facebook and Twitter.

Google boss worries about teen reading

2010-02-02T09:50:00.000-06:00

The boss of US Internet giant Google on Friday expressed concern that youngsters growing up in the mobile instant information age will develop a "deep reading" problem.
"The one that I do worry about is the question of 'deep reading'," said Eric Schmidt, the 54-year-old chief executive and chairman of the internet giant, referring to the term used to explain reading for greater comprehension.

Follett offers free trial of digital textbooks through CafeScribe

2010-01-29T10:37:00.000-06:00

Follett Higher Education Group today announced a new program to address the rising costs of education by offering thousands of digital college textbook titles to students and faculty on a free-trial basis.

Digital File Cabinet You Can Bring With You Anywhere

2010-01-21T11:32:00.000-06:00

What if you could collect, in one well-organized, searchable, private digital repository, all the notes you create, clips from Web pages and emails you want to recall, dictated audio memos, photos, key documents, and more? And what if that repository was constantly synchronized, so it was accessible through a Web browser and through apps on your various computers and smart phones?

Searching the Web Through Pictures

2010-01-14T11:35:00.000-06:00

If you've ever visualized something in your head but couldn't think of its name, you might appreciate a new method of online discovery: visual search.

Caught in the Web

2010-01-13T07:33:00.002-06:00

Ever since the Internet began to make its way into everyday life-beginning roughly in the early 1990s-commentators have worried over its cultural effects, fearing isolation, regimentation, a loss of privacy or a loss of sustained thought. Back then, Jaron Lanier was one of the pioneers of immersive virtual worlds and helped to popularize the term "virtual reality." Those were the days when the Web's promise seemed bright and limitless. Mr. Lanier was one of its champions. Now, as experience has set in, his outlook is decidedly gloomier. In "You Are Not a Gadget," he sounds an alarm about the social-media technologies of the so-called Web 2.0, arguing that they reduce individuals to mere cogs in a mob-based, crowd-sourced apparatus. "Technology criticism," he says in defense of his own role in this debate, "shouldn't be left to the Luddites."

Colleges Lag in Technology and Teaching Quality

2010-01-11T12:56:00.000-06:00

"Getting technology tools into the hands of every student and family should be standard practice. It isn't now," said the U.S. under secretary of education, Martha J. Kanter, addressing a mix of technologists and educators at the HigherEd Tech Summit here, part of the giant salute to gadgetry known as the Consumer Electronics Show. Nor are best practices for professors to use technology to improve learning standard, Ms. Kanter said: "We are losing ground. We have a lot of work

Driven to Distraction - Despite Risks, Carmakers Integrate the Web With the Dash

2010-01-07T09:39:00.000-06:00

To the dismay of safety advocates already worried about driver distraction, automakers and high-tech companies have found a new place to put sophisticated Internet-connected computers: the front seat. Technology giants like Intel and Google are turning their attention from the desktop to the dashboard, hoping to bring the power of the PC to the car. They see vast opportunity for profit in working with automakers to create the next generation of irresistible devices.

Podcasting: A Stepping Stone to Pedagogical Innovation

2010-01-03T10:21:00.000-06:00

"Engage is a program offered through the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Division of Information Technology. Engage partners with members of the campus community to adapt, create, and integrate new and emerging information technologies in instruction. Podcasting was selected by the campus community of educational technology support staff as a theme for the Engage program, and during 2006-2007, Engage provided 90 instructors with a podcasting award. The award included funds to purchase equipment and consultations with educational technology support staff."

Enhancing Student Learning in a Graduate Research and Statistics Course with Clickers

2010-01-01T11:24:00.000-06:00

Investigation has established research and statistics classes as vital in graduate preparatory programs. Nonetheless, most students perceive statistics to be unengaging, difficult, and boring.¹ Instructors have explored a variety of strategies to improve the situation, including using technology to create learning environments to enhance student engagement, interaction, and achievement.

Answering Machine

2009-12-22T11:06:00.002-06:00

WHY is the sky blue? Why do cats purr? And why did you get married? If you're engaging in some year-end reflection, you're not alone. These are among the mysteries people want explained. We know this thanks to an "auto-suggest" feature many search engines now use. When you type even a single word into these search boxes, it gives you a list of suggested, presumably popular completions. Enter "Michelle," for example, and you might get back Obama, Malkin, Pfeiffer.

Internet2 and National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education

2009-12-17T10:26:00.002-06:00

The National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education (NITLE) and Internet2(R) have signed a letter of agreement for reciprocal membership. The two organizations will collaborate to explore and raise awareness of advanced networking applications for teaching and learning, libraries, performing arts, language instruction, health science, and other areas. The timing is in alignment with Internet2's new membership structure, which creates a category of membership geared towards liberal arts colleges. Joint project work is scheduled to begin in January 2010.

For Viral Crooks, Social Networks Are Prime Targets

2009-12-14T14:05:00.001-06:00

It used to be that computer viruses attacked only your hard drive. Now they attack your dignity. Malicious programs are rampaging through Web sites like Facebook and Twitter, spreading themselves by taking over people's accounts and sending out messages to all of their friends and followers. The result is that people are inadvertently telling their co-workers and loved ones how to raise their I.Q.'s or make money instantly, or urging them to watch an awesome new video in which they star.

It's Google, but Squared!

2009-12-11T08:44:00.000-06:00

Finding information online is easy. You go to a search engine, type in what you are looking for and with a few mouse clicks you have an answer...most of the time. Teaching kids how to search is easy. Teaching them how to do quailty search is a bit of a challenge but not impossible. When I was in the classroom, one of the hardest things to teach was organizing information found on the web in such a way that it was easy to see and garnish what was needed.

How fake sites trick search engines to hit the top

2009-12-09T09:17:00.000-06:00

With a little sleight of hand, con artists can dupe them into giving top billing to fraudulent Web sites that prey on consumers, making unwitting accomplices of companies such as Google, Yahoo and Microsoft.

Can Anyone Stop Facebook?

2009-12-07T09:49:00.001-06:00

Nearly a year ago-in the course of cajoling people into joining the ubiquitous social network-I marveled at Facebook's astonishing growth rate: The site had just signed up its 150 millionth member, and about 370,000 people were joining every day. "At this rate," I wrote, "Facebook will grow to nearly 300 million people by this time next year." I confess, though, that I didn't think it was possible for the site to keep growing at that rate. Every hot Web site begins to fade at some point, and back then, the tech world was enamored of an upstart that was gaining lots of attention from celebrities and the media-Twitter. Even Facebook seemed scared of the micro-blogging site. In June, it redesigned its user pages to display updates as quickly as Twitter does, a move that prompted a barrage of threats to quit.