EDUCAUSE_WRC08 and Technology-enhanced Classrooms

While students and educators clamor for unfettered access to the Internet, IT professionals are shoved against the firewall by the likes of the RIAA and the Union of Concerned Parents for a Safe College Experience. What are the educational arguments for open networks in higher education? Can’t the kids just look at YouTube and Facebook at Starbuck’s? What’s the use of an open-laptop, Internet-enabled classroom? What’s the duty of an educational institution regarding digital rights management? Is censorship of particular sites or content the proper role of higher education? This lively session will discuss these and other topics.

This session will present the planning, use, and assessment of our first flexible technology-enhanced classroom or learning "studio"—an immediately useful yet also provocative and experimental space. We will show how the completed space itself challenged our faculty and students to redefine what learning at UMSL could mean.