Students

This fifty-one minute podcast features the session from the EDUCAUSE 2007 Annual Meeting. "Using Emerging Student-Centered Technologies to Enhance the Curriculum," consists of a report on the Digital Enhanced Learning Initiative (DELI), which explores how student-centered technologies can enhance students' academic experiences. Students in five freshman seminars received an iPod or a digital camera to complete course work. Students keep the technology in exchange for sharing information on their use during their remaining four years at the college. You can also view PowerPoint slides for this presentation.

This session is presented by:

Welcome to our back-to-school episode of EDUCAUSE Now! EDUCAUSE Now is a monthly podcast, focusing on the intelligent use of information technology in higher education. Each episode features a variety of stories, interviews, and views that relate to IT in higher education. Let us know what you would like to hear at podcast@educause.edu.

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This episode of EDUCAUSE Now features:

This 47 minute podcast features a keynote address from the EDUCAUSE 2008 Enterprise Conference. The speech, "Today's Clash of Cultures on Campuses and the Role IT Needs to Play," is by Morris W. Beverage Jr., President of Lakeland Community College.

Campuses today face a growing number of clashing cultures. Faculty struggle with traditional methods of teaching in an environment where demands for flexibility and convenience are rising. Learners increasingly treat a college degree like a commodity. Battles rage over resource allocation. Politicians are exerting influence on campus operations and outcomes. This session addresses these issues and the role IT departments need to play to help higher education not just survive, but thrive.

Ning is an online service where users create their own social networks and join and participate in other networks. No technical skill is required to set up a social network, and there are no limits to the number of networks a user can join. The 7 Things You Should Know About Ning, EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative’s (ELI) latest brief in the monthly series, examines how Ning allows instructors to use social networks in a neutral setting to help facilitate a strong sense of community among students and encourage personal interactions that can lead to the creation of new knowledge.

Browse the complete 7 Things You Should Know About… monthly series.

The EDUCAUSE Live! Spotlight on Identity Management series is a six-month series that will feature one or two speakers from a campus that have analyzed or solved a problem in a way that many people will find instructive.

The meaning of "student" is evolving at Duke University in response to many institutional and faculty outreach efforts. This trend is mirrored at many of Duke's peer institutions. In this free seminar on April 18, The Evolving Definition of “Student”: Identity Management at Duke University, presenters Klara Jelinkova, Director, Computing Systems, and Lynne O’Brien, Director, Academic Technology and Instructional Services, Duke University, will discuss the issues, concepts, and solutions surrounding identity management proposed and implemented at Duke University.

An interesting experience from the classroom:

Most of us beyond our early '20s use a term, social networking, to identify activities that have become second nature to Web 2. In a class I determined that I would introduce some scholarly social networks in order to expand their comprehension of social networking.

Luckily, I began by asking "what is social networking?" The class was large and students are often shy about speaking in front of many people. I repeated the question. No raised hands were evident. I changed the question. "How many of you do not know what social networking is?." Now I saw many raised hands.

I pursued the top a bit asking if they knew about or used Facebook, MySpace, or other sites that joined hundreds or thousands of people in communication. Most students participated in social sites.

Suddenly I realized what was happening. My students had been using social networking as a normal and  frequent activity. They were social networking as a matter of course and never needed to be told what we older folk needed a term to comprehend the activity.

Day 2 of ELI. Great talking yesterday with so many folks passionate about technology in higher ed.The power to connect specialized knowledge with technical expertise is infinitely empowering. I see so many folks truly passionate and willing to listen to new ideas on education. It is encouraging. As a student, day-day interactions in formal education can get quite depressing at times. As a technophile, I am always looking to find new ways to engage my subject matter, to add meaning to new information as it comes into my mind. I believe that is the challenge of any true learner, adapting our external world to our internal dialogue. A favorite quote of mine that has always inspired me states,

"The reasonable person adapts themself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to them. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable person."

Intel's decision to pull out of the One Laptop Per Child project, founded by Nicholas Negroponte, is a blow to the project's ambitions.

According to today's BBC report, the project, which aimed to bring computing to children in developing nations via a custom-built, low-cost laptop, seems to be stalling. The original plan was for costs to be kept low by selling in volume, with governments placing large orders of one million. That has not materialised. Costs per unit crept up accordingly, with the final versions trialled in Uruguay and Nigeria reportedly costing closer to USD 200 (GBP 95). What does this mean?

In a strictly pragmatic sense, it's hard to fault Intel for acting the way it did. Intel has its own competing product, the Classmate, which rivals the OLPC's AMD-powered XO. Clearly, OLPC were not happy about this, seeing it as a direct threat to the success of their project. The OLPC apparently asked Intel to stop backing rival low-cost laptops, but the company refused to do so.

In this 40 minute podcast, we feature a speech from the EDUCAUSE 2007 Annual Conference entitled "Tomorrow's Students: Are We Ready for the New 21st-Century Learners?". The presentation is by Julie Evans, Chief Executive Office for Project Tomorrow - NetDay. Video and slides for this speech are also available here.

Abstract:

The national Speak Up initiative annually collects and reports on the authentic, unfiltered viewpoints of K–12 students, teachers, parents, and school leaders about education technology and 21st-century learning environments. Learn about the expectations of today's K–12 students (the higher ed students of tomorrow) for technology use and their new aspirations for learning as uncovered in the most recent survey data.

The EDUCAUSE Core Data Service Fiscal Year 2006 Summary Report has just been released. This report summarizes data for the past fiscal year collected from more than 950 colleges and universities about their campus IT environments, practices, and policies. Respondents represent all enrollment sizes, Carnegie classes, and types of governance, as well as international institutions, providing a broad and deep view of the current IT environment in higher education. The full report can be viewed online free of charge.

Among the notable findings from the report are the following.