Web Seminars Contributed by EDUCAUSE and Blogs

Web 2.0 projects have rapidly expanded into a world of social media. From blogs to podcasts, millions of people have published and shared a growing amount of digital content. At the same time virtual worlds have grown in popularity, from massively multiplayer games like World of Warcraft to metaverse projects like Second Life. How do these two movements apply to higher education? Where do Web 2.0 and the metaverse connect? What trends are emerging for the near future?

New technologies are changing how we teach and learn in classrooms as well as informal learning spaces. Techniques such as blogging, podcasting, and videoblogging once used by tight-knit groups of techies have emerged as key strategies of established media corporations. Social software practices like tagging and intelligent searching are changing how we process information and can potentially change what happens in our formal and informal learning spaces.

Join us as we explore a cross section of emerging technologies and practices including gaming, mobile applications, social and collaborative applications, chat, and clickers. What are the potential implications of students equipped with these technologies? How might they disrupt our existing teaching and learning practices? Are there strategies to help incorporate new technologies into existing infrastructure? How can we ensure that new technologies promote deeper learning?

A key element of the new Web is narrowcasting, which includes Weblogs, podcasts, and video blogs. Practices surrounding narrowcasting that use RSS feeds and aggregators to distribute increasingly rich amateur content are creeping onto our campuses. This session will explore several facets of narrowcasting and the new Web. What is narrowcasting? Where did it come from, and where is it going? How might narrowcasting fit into a campus e-portfolio or course management system? What are the implications of having increasingly media-rich (and resource-intensive) content on campus? How can we filter and focus all of this new content? Join us to explore the vibrant and rapidly evolving world of Weblogs, podcasts, and video blogging and their potential impact on teaching and learning.