EDUCAUSE | Contributed by Organizations or Campuses; Articles, Papers, and Reports; and E-Learning

B-Schools in Second Life: It’s more than just Fun and Games; It’s the Confluence of Playing, Learning, and Working

ckeller — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 15:15:30 -0500

"A few months back, at the beginning of the semester, National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance (NCIIA) made an award to Babson College and the Sloan Consortium to develop a virtual (business) incubator in Second Life. Students in this class would engage in research and development that had the potential of making a significant difference in the field of entrepreneurship globally."

I’ll Take My Lecture to Go, Please

ckeller — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 11:36:30 -0500

Comprehensive study finds that students overwhelmingly prefer having their lectures available online, either for remote access or for later viewing.

Copyright protection and the new stakeholders in online distance education: The Play’s the Thing

ckeller — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 14:33:46 -0500

This paper analyses the university as an Internet intermediary in the current climate of online distance education, classifies the stakeholders associated with the university in Web course management, and explores the need for an “Instructional Design Copyright Law”. The situation is likened to a theatrical production, with front-of-house preparations, backstage operations, and tragic characters.

Fostering Learning in the Networked World: The Cyberlearning Opportunity and Challenge, A 21st Century Agenda for the National Science Foundation

ckeller — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 09:59:26 -0500

The National Science Foundation defines "cyberlearning" as "the use of networked computing and communications technologies to support learning." The report of the NSF Task Force on Cyberlearning, Fostering Learning in the Networked World: The Cyberlearning Opportunity and Challenge, A 21st Century Agenda for the National Science Foundation, identifies cyberlearning as having "…the potential to transform education throughout a lifetime, enabling customized interaction with diverse learning materials on any topic..."

The task force report identifies potential ways in which advanced computing and communications technologies might be leveraged to support learning, highlighting opportunities for further research. In it, the task force offers 5 recommendations for the NSF to pursue:

Help build a vibrant cyberlearning field by promoting cross-disciplinary communities of cyberlearning researchers and practitioners
Instill a "platform perspective"—shared, interoperable designs of hardware, software, and services—into NSF's cyberlearning activities
Emphasize the transformative power of information and communications technology for learning, from K to grey
Adopt programs and policies to promote open educational resources
Take responsibility for sustaining NSF-sponsored cyberlearning innovations

(For EDUCAUSE materials on cyberinfrastructure in teaching and learning, please visit EDUCAUSE Resource Library Cyberinfrastructure web page and look for the "CI Teaching & Learning" tab under "Featured Content.")

Exploring Tangible Benefits of e-Learning: Does Investment Yield Interest?

ckeller — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 15:40:38 -0500

The first decade of the 21st century is already on the wane and we stand at an interesting point as regards the use of technology to support and enhance learning and teaching. The fact that we still refer to much of this enhancement as e-learning (and still disagree about what the term actually means) signals that the relationship between technology and learning is not as yet an entirely comfortable one. e-Learning still carries with it a sense of something 'other' and few institutions can say that a sound understanding of available technologies, their capabilities and current examples of appropriate usage, forms a cornerstone of the curriculum design process.

Within the academic community there remains a sizable proportion of sceptics who question the value of some of the tools and approaches and perhaps an even greater proportion who are unaware of the full range of technological enhancements in current use. Amongst senior managers there is a concern that it is often difficult to quantify the returns achieved on the investment in such technologies.

On the other hand those in the vanguard of technical developments are already signalling the 'Death of the VLE' (Stiles 2007) and heralding a new set of approaches based on a different pedagogic outlook and on the underlying technologies and social and collaborative tools that are collectively labelled the Web 2.0 phenomenon.

Emerging technologies for learning

ckeller — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 11:46:24 -0500

'Emerging technologies for learning' aims to help readers consider how emerging technologies may impact on education in the medium term. The publications are not intended to be a comprehensive review of educational technologies, but offer some highlights across the broad spectrum of developments and trends. It should open readers up to some of the possibilities that are developing and the potential for technology to transform our ways of working, learning and interacting over the next three to five years.

Is Blackboard on Your BlackBerry Far Behind?

ckeller — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 09:42:34 -0600

Higher ed’s largest maker of course management systems acquires NTI Group, one of the top mass messaging providers.

A Framework for Assessing Learning Outcomes in Online Business Simulations

ckeller — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 10:52:14 -0600

This paper explores a framework for assessing effectiveness in online business simulations geared towards business students.

Ways to prevent cheating on online exams

ckeller — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 17:05:31 -0600

The author provides guidelines and tips to for instructors reduce cheating when they use objective exams in online courses.

Geography Emerges in Distance Ed

ckeller — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 09:57:33 -0600

New study challenges conventional wisdom that where you live doesn’t matter when you are enrolled online.