CTL's Weblogs

State Asks US Aid for Some Who Fail MCAS

Boston Globe Online / Sunday | Learning / State asks US aid for some who fail MCAS
"State education officials say they will continue to seek federal financial aid for some students who fail the MCAS exam, despite a federal decision last week not to make students who receive a 'certificate of attainment' eligible for such college aid.
State officials plan to monitor academic performance in community colleges of students who fail to get a high school diploma because they did not pass the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System test. Federal officials have said they would reconsider a state plea to grant aid to such students if the state can show that they succeed in higher education at rates similar to students with diplomas.
State Education Commissioner David P. Driscoll got official word last week that students who are denied diplomas this spring for failing the MCAS but receive a certificate of attainment for meeting other requirements won't qualify for federal financial aid."

Licensed to War Drive in N.H.

Wired News: Licensed to War Drive in N.H.
"A land where white pines easily outnumber wireless computer users, New Hampshire may seem an unlikely haven for the free networking movement.
But the state, known for its Live Free or Die motto, could become the first in the United States to provide legal protection for people who tap into insecure wireless networks.
A bill that's breezing through New Hampshire's legislature says operators of wireless networks must secure them -- or lose some of their ability to prosecute anyone who gains access to the networks."

Despite Its Programs' Reputation for Technical Complexity, SAS Institute Gives Its Customers What They Want

Going Above And Beyond
"Programmers and statistical analysts have always dominated SAS Institute Inc.'s annual user-group meetings. This year in Seattle, while the pocket-protector crowd still made up most of the attendee list, more CIOs and CFOs were present, too. Outfitted with SAS T-shirts and blue shoulder bags, they stood out among the Mary Kay Cosmetics conventioneers and the 50,000 WrestleMania fans in town for a series of bouts at Safeco Field.
It's not surprising that so many execs turned out for the conference--business-intelligence technology is increasingly strategic. But the strong showing is also a barometer of how well SAS, which got its start when its founders developed software for analyzing agricultural data at North Carolina State University, is expanding beyond its scientific roots."

Action Research On Building Learning Communities in Cyberspace

Action Research On Building Learning Communities In Cyberspace :: Distance-Educator.com's Daily News :: Distance education news from around the world!
"The paper reports action research on web-based courses conducted from 1999 to 2001. The goal of the research was to investigate students’ opinions toward such courses and to examine the impact of using different strategies on online communities. Data collection relied on online discussion messages, observations, interviews, and surveys. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were utilized in this study. The results revealed that students and the instructor were in favor of web-based courses and that the use of
moderating strategies greatly influenced online communities."

Top E-Mail Providers Unite Against Spam

Top e-mail providers unite against spam
"Three companies representing the world's largest block of e-mail users joined hands on Monday to fight spam in an acknowledgment of the increasing cost of allowing unsolicited e-mail to clog inboxes, networks and computer memory space.
America Online, Microsoft and Yahoo! said they would work together to devise ways to block unidentified messages, stop spammers from creating fraudulent e-mail accounts and work more closely with law enforcement to rein in the practice."

Academic Digital Rights: A Walk on the Creative Commons

Syllabus Article: Academic Digital Rights: A Walk on the Creative Commons
"In principle, copyright is a spectrum. It grants authors an array of discrete, fine-grained powers: the rights to copy, redistribute, commercially exploit, or build upon an authored work, among others. Each right can be exercised individually and enforced more or less than any other, depending on the author's preferences.
In practice, however, copyright tends toward monochrome: It applies automatically and fully to all works the moment they're made, regardless of the author's aims. To deviate from this 'all rights reserved' default usually requires the help of skilled (and often expensive) lawyers."

FCC Plans Stricter Rules on 'e-rate' Net-Access Program

Mercury News | 04/21/2003 | FCC plans stricter rules on 'e-rate' Net-access program
"The Federal Communications Commission this week is expected to tighten rules for the third time on a program that provides subsidized Internet access to schools and libraries, but has been persistently criticized for its largess and lax oversight.
Spurred by allegations of widespread fraud, commissioners Wednesday plan to adopt regulations that would disqualify telecommunications service providers that repeatedly flout the rules of the government's multibillion-dollar 'e-rate' program, intended to wire thousands of rural and poor schools and libraries for high-speed Internet access."

Barriers To Distance Education

ACE's Center for Policy Analysis
"Today's new technologies, particularly the Internet, present higher education with the largest megaphone in its history-the capacity to disseminate knowledge to an exponentially larger number of people than ever before. To do this, educators use a vehicle now commonly known as distance education.
It is a subject that has stimulated intense passions, new and aggressive competitors, pressure for new (and often very different) resources, an evolving regulatory environment, and more ambiguities than certainties about appropriate policy and practice-not to mention the most fundamental questions about the future of the academy.
This paper describes the barriers to distance learning, both inside and outside the higher education community. Inside the academy, distance education programs encounter numerous challenges: the academy's acceptance of distance education as an appropriate teaching method, competition for limited financial resources, and the ability to withstand the slow governance gauntlet. Outside the academy, distance education encounters varying regulations, laws, policies, and practices imposed by congressional and state legislators, accreditors, and professional associations."

Colleges in Washington State Face Cuts in Information-Technology Programs

The Chronicle: Daily news: 04/24/2003 -- 01
"Business leaders and university officials fear that proposed budget cuts in the State of Washington could hurt college programs that teach information technology to students, possibly causing more problems for the state economy.
The state is hurting for college graduates with expertise in computer science and technology. And budget cuts may force some university administrators to reduce the number of slots available for students to take courses in those fields.
Many states are reeling from the weak economy and are being forced to make deep budget cuts. Facing a $2.6-billion deficit in the state's $25-billion biennial budget, the Washington State Legislature is looking at cutbacks as well."

Resources for Using Instructional Technology to Support Learning

Resources for Using ICTs to Support Learning
Check out this site from the University of Hong Kong for articles, collections, discipline-specific web sites, online forums, online journals, web-based tutorials and weekly updates on online learning. This is a "one-stop shop" of organized material that would be useful to bookmark.

Online Assessment of Learners

Assessing Learners Online. Practitioner File
"More and more teaching and learning are taking place at a distance, especially on the World Wide Web. How do educators measure what distance learners know? This issue of the Practitioner File looks at issues and techniques related to the assessment of online learning for adult, career, and vocational education. We address assessment in the sense of obtaining and interpreting information about what has been learned, rather than evaluating web-based courses and instruction (although we found that the literature tilts more toward course evaluation than learner assessment). Inside you will find discussions of the principles, advantages, and challenges of online assessment; the concepts of continuous assessment and interactivity; the role of the instructor; and descriptions of types, tools, techniques, and resources."

Cultivating Successful Rural Economies: Benchmark Practices at Community Colleges

Innovation Express
"In this new environment, many community or technical colleges have risen to the challenge of the new economy and expanded their mission to help rural businesses—especially small- and mid-size enterprises—and labor forces adapt to changing needs. Over the past two decades, community and technical colleges have accumulated a vast storehouse of experience in delivering a spectrum of education and training programs and innovative services to rural companies to help them modernize, become more competitive, and grow. Because two-year colleges are less entrenched in tradition and have stronger regional missions than universities or vocational centers, they are better able to respond quickly to market demands and changing conditions."

ERIC Continues But Without Clearinghouses

ERIC Continues But Without Clearinghouses
"Since its beginning in 1966, the venerable ERIC education megabase–(How venerable? On Dialog, it’s File 1)–has derived its million-plus records through the networked contributions of 16 clearinghouses and 10 adjunct clearinghouses located at academic institutions around the country. Following a sweeping reorganization of the U.S. Department of Education begun in 2002, a new Draft Statement of Work (SOW) was issued on April 10 for the contracts that control the production of the ERIC database and the document delivery operations of the ERIC Document Reproduction Service (EDRS)."

After Years of Crises, an Atlanta College is on Death Watch

After Years of Crises, an Atlanta College Is on Death Watch
"The college was founded in 1881 in the basement of the legendary Big Bethel A.M.E. Church on Auburn Avenue here, the first college in Georgia established by and for blacks.
It graduated Alberta Williams King, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s mother, and it has taken a chance on countless students lacking the credentials to get a private-college education elsewhere.
'It's the heart and soul of all the historically black colleges and universities,' said Mr. Roberts, who also cannot say enough about the Morris Brown's 'familylike atmosphere.' But now, Morris Brown may soon be history."

Group Plans New Services for Distance Education

The Chronicle: Daily news: 04/18/2003 -- 01
"The Southern Regional Education Board plans to offer new online services in the fall to help distance-education students enroll in Web-based courses and receive academic support.
The project will offer services similar to those already being provided by individual institutions all over the country. But the SREB program will offer centralized online assistance to students enrolled in some 350 public and private colleges in the South."

Some Colleges Add Ads to Their Web Sites

The Chronicle: 4/25/2003: Some Colleges Add Ads to Their Web Sites
"When students at the University of Oklahoma log on to the campus Web site to check their e-mail or use online academic services, they learn that that they can save 10 percent on the purchase of a Dell computer or get a haircut from a local barber shop for only $9.99.
While advertisements appear on most commercial Internet sites, colleges have kept their Web sites free of ads. A few institutions, however, are experimenting to see if they can display some commercial logos and advertisements on their Web sites without annoying students and professors."

Applying for High-Performance Computing Resources

NSF: CISE: Divisions
"There are several ways of obtaining access to PACI resources, depending on your eligibility and requirements. Smaller allocations, including startup allocations, are handled by the individual PACI partnerships. Check the individual Alliance or NPACI pages for more information. Larger applications are considered by the National Resource Allocations Committee (NRAC) twice annually. This panel of recognized computational scientists reviews and recommends for award resources on a PACI-wide basis. The allocations are for one year. The two partnerships alternate responsibility for hosting the NRAC meetings. For complete information on submitting an NRAC request, see either the Alliance or NPACI pages."

Influence of Non-Moderated and Moderated Discussion Sites on Student Success

Influence Of Non-Moderated And Moderated Discussion Sites On Student Success :: Distance-Educator.com's Daily News :: Distance education news from around the world!
"One of the most successful applications of networked technology in education has been the development of individualized homework assignments. Such assignments provide immediate feedback to students and discourage copying. However, networked technology also allows students to develop sophisticated schemes designed to beat the system. This paper, supported in part by Andrew W. Mellon and Alfred P. Sloan Foundations, reports the educational outcomes for introductory physics students who used two web sites, one designed by the course instructor to provide assistance to students and the other a site designed by a third party to provide students with the solutions to problems. Results indicated that students who used the third-party site more tended to perform more poorly on all measures of success in the course, and that these relationships held even after accounting for students' academic ability. On the other hand, students who more often used the site designed by the instructor tended to perform better in the course."

Quid Pro Quo

The Chronicle: 4/11/2003: Quid Pro Quo
"As recently as two years ago, getting companies to donate software for the classroom was easy, says Jean F. Coppola, a grants officer at Pace University. 'We could get almost everything just by a simple phone call or e-mail.'
As a college that turns out several hundred teachers every year, Pace has depended each fall on receiving free copies of Microsoft's latest educational software, 'so that the new teachers coming out would be familiar with the new titles,' says Sandra G. Flank, a professor of education.
But Ms. Flank doesn't bother to ask Microsoft for donated software anymore. Instead of submitting pro forma, one-page requests to Microsoft, as it did in the past, Pace now must compete with other colleges for donations of titles like Encarta. Because of the sluggish economy, Ms. Flank says, Microsoft also has stopped publishing some of the programs that Pace had received free."

Distance Learning Graduate Degrees Receive High Approval Ratings

Distance Learning Graduate Degrees Receive High Approval Ratings :: Distance-Educator.com's Daily News :: Distance education news from around the world!
"In 1989, when GetEducated.com, LLC, began tracking accredited distance degrees, 5 MBAs were available to the public. Today, GetEducated.com’s free guidebook, Best Distance Learning Graduate Schools, Business and Management 2003, profiles 103 accredited distance MBAs. The MBA is by far the most popular degree offered in distance format in the USA.
But is a distance degree as good as an old-fashioned residential graduate degree?
Two independent research studies have compared distance learning MBA students to their residential peers. Both studies have found more similarities than differences between groups in learner satisfaction and educational outcomes."

What Is This Link Doing Here?

What Is This Link Doing Here? Beginning A Fine-grained Process Of Identifying Reasons For Academic Hyperlink Creation :: Distance-Educator.com's Daily News :: Distance education news from around the world!
"Analogies between Web links and citations have been used in information retrieval to improve search engine query matching and in information science to develop link metrics for academic and other Web spaces. The purpose of this paper is to begin a fine-grained process of differentiating between creation motivations for links in academic Web sites and citations in journals on the basis that they are very different phenomena."

National U. Offers Laid-Off Teachers a Big Break on Tuition

SignOnSanDiego.com > News > Education -- National U. offers laid-off teachers a big break on tuition
"In an unprecedented move, National University has offered steeply discounted tuition to any laid-off teacher in California.
The La Jolla-based private university announced yesterday that it would offer half-price tuition, up to $6,000, to the estimated 30,000 teachers who got pink slips last month."

Browser Revolution--10 Years After

News: Browser revolution--10 years after
"True to his pragmatic Midwestern background, the former University of Illinois researcher assumed that it was only a matter of time before something would be created to make the Internet's trove of information available to the masses. Serendipity determined that it would be Mosaic, the browser application that he developed with Marc Andreessen and a handful of other 20-somethings in 1993."

What Academic Administrators Should Know to Attract Senior Level Faculty Members to Online Learning Environments

What Academic Administrators Should Know to Attract Senior Level Faculty Members to Online Learning Environments (Giannoni. Tesone)
"The purpose of this article is to present findings of a focus group study used to design a survey instrument for applications in future studies to determine factors of influence that inspire senior faculty members to participate in course delivery through online learning environments (OLE). Much of the general research that is available, identifies concerns such as monetary compensation, and concerns for technological savvy, however these concerns are not true for all faculty members. The differing motivational factors (as they have emerged in the literature) have shown to be related to faculty appointment levels and years of service, which seem to play an important role in identifying how administrators can encourage these seasoned instructors to participate in the online learning environments. The article concludes with discussion points to encourage academic administrators to consider the merits of senior level faculty member inclusion into online learning environment delivery formats."

Virtual Science and Technology Campus for Mediterranean Basin

UNESCO - Virtual science and technology campus for mediterranean basin
"An ambitious distance-learning project involving 15 countries, most of them in the Mediterranean Basin, will become operational following a kick-off meeting in UNESCO on March 17. The project, named Avicenna Virtual Campus (after the Latin name for the medieval Persian philosopher-scientist, Ibn Sina), has attracted €3.7 million in funding from the European Commission’s EUMEDIS (Euro-Mediterranean Information Society) programme and €920,000 from partners including UNESCO, which is the project’s principal co-ordinator. 'The aim of Avicenna,' says Walter Erdelen, UNESCO’s Assistant Director-General for Natural Sciences 'is to help bridge the gap in science and technology education in the region using ICT, The virtual campus will reinforce existing higher educational establishments in the region, not replace them.' At the moment, universities in North Africa, for example, often have to limit the number of students they can take, because they lack the infrastructure and teaching staff. 'Avicenna,' explains Mustafa El Tayeb, Director of UNESCO’s Science Analysis and Policies Division, 'provides specially-designed distance learning course material to each of the 15 ‘knowledge centres’ in the network. The materials will be produced in one or more of six languages (English, French, Arabic, Italian, Spanish and Turkish), and will be backed up by local, trained tutors. They can reach students who would otherwise be refused access to higher education in their own country because of lack of staff and facilities.”

Campuses Foot Computer Bill

The Sacramento Bee -- sacbee.com -- Campuses foot computer bill
"As California State University's 23 campuses scramble to cut budgets and accommodate more students, they face an additional headache: a requirement to divert millions of dollars into a controversial $662 million computer system that state auditors say may not function as intended.
The CSU chancellor's office has mandated that all campuses adopt the system as a way to upgrade their outdated computer technology and standardize human resources, financial and student administration functions with PeopleSoft software. Finding a way to pay for it was left up to each campus."

New German Copyright Law Pleases Scholars and Angers Academic Publishers

The Chronicle: Daily news: 04/14/2003 -- 07
"A hotly contested copyright law adopted on Friday by Germany's Parliament gives universities and research institutions considerable leeway to digitally distribute copyrighted materials among students and scholars without paying extra charges. The law has been welcomed by academics. But academic publishers, who fought tooth and nail against the bill, say it will force them out of business."

A $20-Million Carrot

The Chronicle: 4/18/2003: A $20-Million Carrot
" Innovation Hall, a $20-million, 100,000-square-foot building stocked with technological tools, will be a showpiece for George Mason University and will undoubtedly be an attractive location for courses that use technology. Alan G. Merten, the university's president, plans to use that to his advantage.
Like many administrators, Mr. Merten has struggled with the challenge of getting more professors to use technology in the classroom. He has improved technology support and set up grant programs to pay for course retooling. He has even scheduled awards ceremonies to honor faculty members who have incorporated high-tech devices in their teaching. Now he is approaching Innovation Hall with a new plan, a wager: What tech-savvy professor, or merely tech-curious professor, wouldn't want to teach in this brand-new, high-tech building? Most colleges assign fancy new buildings to departments. Innovation Hall will be open to all professors in all disciplines, he says, but only on the condition that they expand the use of technology in their lessons."

Teaching in the Wireless Cloud

TheFeature :: It's All About The Mobile Internet
"Students with mobile devices are slowly redefining During the 1990s, American colleges gradually admitted instructional technology into campus life. Now these schools are catching the m-learning wave, building wireless infrastructures, and experimenting with pilot programs. New ways of learning are emerging as wireless education unfolds.
The most controversial instance of m-learning occurs in the traditional classroom, when students gain access to wireless connectivity. Some professors report frustration at students' wandering attention, as Minesweeper or instant messages become more attractive than a lecture. A Texas law professor went so far as to climb a ladder to disconnect a wireless access point. Others turn to technologies that beam students' desktops to a projector, using the threat of embarrassment as attention enforcement."

Open-Source Battle Rages in Oregon

Open-source battle rages in Oregon | CNET News.com
"A group of open-source advocates and critics will meet behind closed doors Wednesday afternoon, in the first of at least two meetings in search of a compromise on what could be the first bill in the United States to encourage the use of open-source software by a state government.
The bill, introduced by Oregon Rep. Phil Barnhart, D-Eugene, last month, would require the state to consider using open-source software when buying new programs. Although the bill does not specifically mandate open-source software over proprietary software, the bill does say it cannot be excluded from the selection process. The bill, HB 2892, also says open-source options can 'significantly reduce the state's costs of obtaining and maintaining software.'
Although the bill is in a nascent stage, it's quickly drawn the ire of companies, including Microsoft and the Initiative for Software Choice (ISC), a group that's popped up in the wake of similar legislative efforts in other countries. Opponents of the bill say governments can already choose open-source software, and they worry that the legislation could set a dangerous precedent of a government mandating certain types of software over others."

Courses for Faculty Teaching with Technology

MnSCU Office of Instructional Technology
Check out the Office of Instructional Technology's Web page on "Courses for Faculty Teaching with Technology." It has a whole new look, and contains many excellent and very current resources for faculty who:
• Have no access to online training development at their own institutions
• Who do have support, but want other perspectives and ways to keep current.
These are not free courses, but certainly can extend opportunities for new learning.

Rethinking Wireless

University Business
"As wireless LANs grow on campuses across North America, academic technologists strategize for the challenges of the future.
Remember when the only network on college and university campuses was the wired one? When schools like yours invested millions in fixed Ethernet ports? When 'network security' meant betting the house on the hope that outsiders wouldn’t sneak onto campus and plug in? Those days aren’t all that far behind us; even the pioneers in the wireless space didn’t ditch their wires much before the current 802.11b wireless standards were ratified in 2001. The academic wireless Local Area Network (LAN) has come a long way since then. Though few schools have advanced beyond expanding the networks they bought back in 2001, hundreds of schools across North America now have some form of wireless capability, and hundreds more consider it every day."

Sloan-C View

Sloan-C - Publications - Sloan-C View
"Perspectives in Quality Online Education - A Publication of the Sloan Consortium." An interesting site with book reviews, papers, resources and conferences.

David Wiley on Learning Objects

autounfocus: Learning objects: difficulties and opportunities

The above link at David Wiley's "autounfocus" blog (a blog "relating to learning objects, self-organization in informal online communities, peer learning, instructional technology, open source culture, and intellectual property law" - David Wiley, Utah State Universiity, is one of the leading Learning Objects scholars) references "an eight page piece cataloging what I believe to be some of the largest obstacles to the successful use of learning object and some of the biggest opportunities for educational innovation using learning objects."

To go directly to the pdf "Learning Objects: Difficulties and Opportunities," click/type
http://wiley.ed.usu.edu/docs/lo_do.pdf .

Low Cost Printer Ink

Distance-Educator.com
If you are tired of the high cost of ink cartridges, check out this site mentioned in Distance-Educator: http://www.inkjets.com

Using the Project Approach to Online Course Development

Using the Project Approach to Online Course Development
“While business and industry training programs frequently have a highly-structured, process-driven approach to course development, the approaches used in higher education are usually informal and independently planned. Such a difference is not surprising when we consider that each instructor or faculty member in higher education has a great deal of control over the course content, one of the strengths of such advanced coursework. The informal nature of course development in higher education is even more prominent in online course development due to a lack of dedicated technology personnel to work with faculty, faculty unfamiliarity with online technologies, faculty desire to remain autonomous, and a lack of the necessary project management skills. The needs and desires for more and more online multimedia-enhanced courses far overwhelms the resources and skills available to faculty, most of whom lack the confidence, time, and incentives to do all tasks related to developing and supporting their courses (Fink, 2002).”

Adding Excitement to E-learning

INDUSTRYWEEK ARTICLES -- Adding Excitement To E-learning
"Fun and employee training aren't usually words that companies use in the same sentence. In fact, much of e-learning is e-boring, but several computer training companies are aiming to lighten up the learning process with games and simulations that are anything but dull."

A Shortcut Through Time: Quantum Weirdness

'A Shortcut Through Time': Quantum Weirdness
"All computers, regardless of their hardware, embody the same idea: information -- numbers, words, images, sounds -- can be represented by anything that can be in one of two distinct states. A switch that can be either in the on or in the off position will do the trick. In the most powerful conventional computers, these switches are tiny silicon transistors. Each switch represents a binary digit, or 'bit.' The more switches you have, the bigger the numbers that can be represented. Ten switches, for instance, can represent any one of the numbers from 0 to 1,023.
Now consider a quantum computer. Quantum theory explains how the world works at the atomic level. One of its many incomprehensible features is that it allows things to be in two contrary states at the same time. An atom, for example, can spin like a top. You'd think a given atom would have to be spinning either clockwise or counterclockwise. But quantum theory tells us that if you hit an atom with a pulse of light of the right duration, it will enter a 'superposition' in which it is doing both."

Using Computer Simulations to Supplement Teaching Laboratories in Chemistry for Distance Delivery

Using Computer Simulations To Supplement Teaching Laboratories In Chemistry For Distance Delivery :: Distance-Educator.com's Daily News :: Distance education news from around the world!
"Computer simulations employing digitized video images were incorporated into the laboratory component of an existing first-year university chemistry course as part of a pilot study. The students were surveyed about their experience and their performance in this distance course was also tracked and compared with students who did not do the simulations.
No difference in overall course performance was observed between students who did the simulations and those who did not. However, simulation students completed in-laboratory work in a shorter time frame and showed a slightly higher performance in the practical laboratory component."

ECT Act: Awaiting a Precedent

ECT Act: Awaiting a precedent
"The Electronic Communications and Transactions (ECT) Act bears a number of legal implications for companies in terms of document management and storage, as it is no longer simply paper files that are considered to be legal documents.
'A business agreement that is committed to via e-mail, SMS or even recorded voice is considered to be a legal document,' says Reinhardt Buys, of Buys Inc Attorneys, who specialises in the legalities of the digital communications field."

Tech Masters

District Administration
"Veteran teachers are as technology-wise in this district as new teachers, and even students. An ongoing staff development program is why."

An Online Conservatory Allows Visitors to Try Their Hand at Remaking Classical Standards

The Chronicle: Daily news: 04/03/2003 -- 01
"What's the best way to use new media to teach classical music?" asks Anthony P. De Ritis, an assistant professor of music at Northeastern University. The answer, he says, is simple: "To use the Internet like an interactive game."

Welcome to Gabriel

Gabriel : Gateway to Europe's National Libraries
"Gabriel is the World Wide Web service of Europe's National Libraries represented in the Conference of European National Librarians (CENL). In Gabriel you can find information about all the National Libraries of Europe, their services and the online exhibitions they offer."

Creating a Unified Digital Campus to Satisfy the Needs of 21st Century Learners

Creating a Unified Digital Campus to Satisfy the Needs of 21st Century Learners
"Information technology (IT) has become as pervasive and expected as basic utilities within most campuses, and users' expectations for service continue to increase. In response, many institutions are eager to add new technology applications and systems that will expand the reach of applications to more users, enhance services, and increase efficiency. However, adding stand-alone applications and systems will not address these goals. Instead, institutions must strive to unify all of their disparate technology applications and systems into a single digital campus."

Proposal Expands Online Classes

Pioneer Press | 04/02/2003 | Proposal expands online classes
"Minnesota would take a big step into the world of online learning under a bill sponsored by a key, bipartisan group of lawmakers.
State rules now keep a tight lid on virtual classrooms. Fewer than 20 districts offer such courses, with fewer than 1,000 students participating.
But if the current proposal becomes law, a new vision of education could emerge. A small, rural district could offer online courses to students across the state, or suburban districts could compete for students by offering highly specialized courses, such as Latin."

Are Desktops Dead?

District Administration
"Ignoring for a moment the cost of replacing all desktop computer labs with mobile computing solutions, there are other issues to contend with. One is as simple as boot-up time. It may take a classroom teacher 10 minutes to distribute laptops to a class and wait for all the students to log in to the machines. That’s 10 minutes that’s not wasted when students file into a computer lab where the technology is ready and waiting. In addition, the wireless networks that allow these laptops to connect to the Internet aren’t nearly as fast, as reliable or as safe as hard-wired networks."

The Internet and the Iraq War

Pew Internet & American Life Project
"More than three-quarters of online Americans (77%) have used the Internet in connection with the war in Iraq. They are going online to get information about the war, to learn and share differing opinions about the conflict, to send and receive emails where they ponder events, express their views and offer prayers. In addition, a smaller portion of Internet users are using email to mobilize others and gain support for their views about the conflict."

UW Selects New Course Management System

DESIEN March 2003

The March 2003 issue of DESEIN (Distance Education Systemwide Interactive Electronic Newsletter) from Wisconsin (http://www.uwex.edu/disted/desien/) announces Wisconsin's IMS choice following their statewide RFP process.

If you haven't checked out this newsletter, it may be worth a quick read.

Learning Objects in Motion

Syllabus Article: Learning Objects in Motion
"Instructional designers and educational technologists often talk about the potential for learning objects. Lego-like in their utility, learning objects are the small pedagogical chunks that can be assembled in different ways to provide alternative learning paths through a course topic. Some people present learning objects as the smallest component that has internal meaning for a given course objective. This implies that a learning object has a context associated with one or more 'things' that together present a coherent building block toward understanding an idea."

A New Web Site Seeks to Increase Minority Students' Use of Federal Scholarships

The Chronicle: Daily news: 03/31/2003 -- 02
"In an effort to increase the number of minority students who take advantage of federally funded scholarship and job opportunities, a government agency has created a Web site consolidating information on such programs.
The site, called e-Scholar and designed by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, lists government scholarships, fellowships, grants, and internships geared to high-school, undergraduate, and graduate students."

Library Groups Say Sweeping State Copyright Laws Could Stifle Teaching and Research

The Chronicle: Daily news: 04/01/2003 -- 01
" Academic-library groups are denouncing copyright-protection bills that legislatures in several states are considering. The groups say that the bills, if they became law, could erode fair-use rights even more than the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the controversial federal law that makes it illegal to bypass technologies designed to protect digital works."

Research And Evaluation Needs For Distance Education: A Delphi Study

Research And Evaluation Needs For Distance Education: A Delphi Study :: Distance-Educator.com's Daily News :: Distance education news from around the world!
" As policy makers need to make wise philosophical and policy decisions about using distance education, they are asking for research and evaluation about the distance learning process. Therefore, distance educators were asked to participate in a Delphi study to identify and rank future research and evaluation needs/issues."

Research And Evaluation Needs For Distance Education: A Delphi Study

Getting in Deep: After Google, the Invisible Web

Syllabus Article: Getting in Deep: After Google, the Invisible Web
"Neither Google nor any other search tool can index all the information on the Internet. Conventional search tools such as Google, Yahoo, AltaVista, All the Web, or meta-searchers like Ixquick, Vivísimo, and SurfWax often access more than a couple billion pages in their databases. However, a large portion of available information has been difficult or impossible to search. Material that is not accessible using conventional search tools has become known as the 'Invisible Web.' Other names for the Invisible Web include the Deep Web, Opaque Web, and searchable databases.
Such information is not accessible to conventional search tools because it is inside databases such as the U.S. Census, Amazon.com, or a library's online catalog. The locations of these pages can be found through resources such as Gary Price's Direct Search, Complete Planet: The Deep Web, InvisibleWeb.com, and Invisible-web.net. Or the information can be located via subject directory tools like Infomine, Librarians' Index to the Internet (LII), Best Information on the Net, and AlphaSearch."

eBooks Haven't Worked—Here's What Might

Syllabus Article: eBooks Haven't Worked
"You may not think of paper as an information storage and retrieval system, but it is one. In fact, paper is an incredibly inexpensive, portable, and durable medium that requires no electricity or batteries. Binding a few sheets of paper together makes a book. But while books have greatly evolved since the Gutenberg Bible of 1455, they have never overcome the limitations of paper.
It's not surprising, then, that technologists have tried to improve upon books by transforming them into digital media. With regularity that rivals the seasons, eBooks and eBook readers are announced and quietly forgotten. Of course there is a current crop of them that looks promising, as they always do, but most eBooks have all of the limitations of paper and the worst characteristics of current computers and their ilk."

University of Alberta: eLearning: From Grass Roots to Mission-Critical

Syllabus Article: University of Alberta: eLearning: From Grass Roots to Mission-Critical
"eLearning began at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada with a few brave faculty members who decided to try something new. They started small: making their course syllabi, lecture notes, or class assignments available to students via the Web. Students responded positively—even seeking out particular instructors or courses that featured online components.
Today, what began as a grassroots movement by students and faculty has evolved into an institution-wide eLearning program that is closely aligned with the university's core mission and goals. The university currently offers approximately 1,500 online courses, with more than 120,000 student registrations—and expects a continued 25 percent growth for the next several years."

Universities to be Sued over Music Downloads

Times Online
"The British record industry is to prosecute universities that allow students to copy music over the internet through their computer networks.
Heads of universities will face criminal sanctions if they collude in the illegal downloading of music files — 'copyright theft' — that is costing the music industry £2 billion a year.
The industry believes that universities, which offer students unlimited access to computers, are producing a generation of fans who believe that music is a commodity available free of charge. Websites such as kazaa and grokster allow internet users to download digital copies of the latest hits and produce their own compilation CDs for nothing."

Board Screens Virtual School Plan

News - Calgary - canada.com network
"Calgary's public schools may move some students out of the schoolhouse this fall, with the bell instead ushering them into cyberspace.
Calgary Board of Education trustees are being asked by administration tonight to approve the creation of an online junior and senior high school. If they do, the district will join the 18 other virtual schools in the province."