EDUCAUSE Review Articles and Instructional Technologies

"During the past year, rich Internet applications (RIAs) -- have started to take off in the Web
2.0 space, gaining traction in a number of different areas, including education."Rich Internet application" refers to a development metaphor that allows a much higher level of expressiveness, so that the overall user experience is improved. Most RIAs incorporate audio or visual elements to make the experience
all the more engaging."

"Over the next two years, the New Horizons department will contribute to the reframing process. Within the context of innovation in learning in higher education, we will be looking not only at emerging
technologies but also at emerging practices that make innovative use of those technologies."

The author gives various examples as to why IT matters to students of liberal arts education.

nanoHUB is an online portal for nanotechnology researchers, instructors, and students created by Purdue University and the National Science Foundation. It uses cyberinfrastructure to provide access to scientific tools for research, demonstration, and collaboration, as well as instructional materials. Users can run experiments, review research, or download lectures. nanoHUB is a virtual toolkit as well as a community where students and faculty contribute to the science of nanotechnology.

Given the demands of teaching, service, and research, faculty are today expected to embrace learning technologies along with everything else, challenging the institution to help them make sense of what works and how to work it.

"Digital media can bridge these gaps between tradition and innovation. The Internet can support traditional methods of instruction by capturing lectures using streaming video and thus making the classroom available to students anytime and anywhere. But students need more than a simple duplication of their lectures. They need new study methods. "

EDUCAUSE presents the top-ten IT-related issues in terms of strategic importance to the institution, as revealed by the eighth annual EDUCAUSE Current Issues Survey. This year, Funding IT moves back to the top of the list.

This section of the ELI Guide to Podcasting was written by Carie Windham, Former Undergraduate, North Carolina State University, and Graduate Student, University of Ulster, Northern Ireland. It is also published in EDUCAUSE Review, Vol. 42, No. 3 (May/June 2007).

After becoming a podcasting convert, the author talked with other students at colleges and universities across North America about their iPod and MP3 use, their familiarity with podcasting, and how they see podcasting as part of the classroom.

The author makes the case for implementing web 2.0 features into course management systems (CMS).

With directed effort, some ingenuity, and a future-focused vision, colleges and universities should be able to identify and leverage existing technologies with which to build aspects of "future" campus learning spaces—today.