EDUCAUSE_SWRC08

This is regional conference number 2 for me, and my third Educause event in as many months.  I January, it was my good fortune to meet many of you during the ELI annual conference in San Antonio.

In February, I attended the Southwest Regional Educause conference in Houston, and today, we're wrapping up the Midwest Regional Conference in Chicago.

What I observe is the conference titles did much to set up the differences in the attendees and the conference experience -- and gloabaly, these differences really define where we are with education technology today. To attend all three gives the broader and more strategic view of our work together.

The conference titles were:

This is a summary of the EDUCAUSE Southwest Regional Opening General Session, February 20, 2008

Knowledge Sharing: Some Myths and Ideas, and a Little IT

Jean E. Engle

Chief Knowledge Officer,

NASA/Johnson Space Center

MS. Engle was the NASA Johnson Space Center CIO until she recently accepted the challenge of becoming one of the few Chief Knowledge Officers in the government.  She noted that there are many differences between the two roles. 

She provided background information about NASA and JSC.  Many do not realize that NASA has multiple centers around the country.  These all began as competitors rather than partners but this has changed over the years.  Engle described the passion in the community for their work.

EDUCAUSE Southwest Regional Conference Think Stop #1

EDUCAUSE Southwest Regional Conference Think Stop #2

Question: How do we move from working in reactive mode and into proactive mode?

Responses:

EDUCAUSE Southwest Regional Conference Think Stop #3

Question: Green initiatives: Who's doing what to move towards sustainability?

Responses:

This 12 minute podcast features an interview with Jean Engle, Chief Knowledge Officer for NASA at the Johnson Space Center. She delivered the opening keynote speech at the EDUCAUSE 2008 Southwest Regional Conference entitled, "Knowledge Sharing: Some Myths and Ideas, and a Little IT".

Ms. Engle joined the Johnson Space Center as a cooperative education student in 1984. She earned a B.A. in Mathematics in 1987, and an M.B.A in 1993 from the University of Houston, Clear Lake. She has served in a variety of increasingly responsible division and directorate staff positions and has been a member of the CIO Office since its inception in 1994. Over the last several years, she has led JSC’s involvement in a number of Agencywide and Centerwide Information Technology standards and security efforts.

In this 50 minute podcast we feature a keynote speech by Mark Luker, Vice President of EDUCAUSE. The speech was delivered at the EDUCAUSE 2008 Southwest Regional Conference in Houston, Texas, and is entitled, "Washington Update: We're from the Government, and We're Here to Help You!"

Rice University has undertaken an initiative to start using the things that their students are already using.  Students indicated that they don't use email (email is for old people).  They use their social networking tools.  Watch this video.

Comments from the audience:

This presentation was given by Chris Scheetz, Jim S.C. Tom, and Kenneth L. Voss all from University of MIssouri - St. Louis.  They created the first flexible technology enhanced classroom (learning studio).  They describe it as provocative and experimental. They wanted to do this project to increase enrollment and maintain retention. 

They conducted a systematic upgrade of classrooms on campus.  They did a survey of how faculty members taught their classes.  Most of them used the lecture based methods.  Most of the classrooms were very immobile.  Computers locked down, tables/desks and seats immobile.   They included  faculty, staff and students, facilities & planning in the design of this classroom.  It started with a working paper for planning this classroom. He emphasized the fact that it was not just an IT project.  It required everyone's participation campus/department wide.  4 million dollar project.

Presented by Rebecca Gould, Director of Information Technology Assistance Center, Kansas State University.  She started out by showing us a pictorial of the extreme makeover of a classroom.  A large screen (almost movie size) installed on wall, use of clickers, lecture hall style seating, The goals of the project were empowerment and ownership.

They started by looking at the total inventory of classrooms, developing a team to come up with strategic ways to acquire technology (S.W.A.T.), common core (courses with the greatest need), budget estimates, etc. Some of the issues were capacity, ADA compliance, acquiring appropriate approvals, security, maintenance, etc.  Need 2.4 million dollars for some of their classroom makeovers.