Podcasts and Future of Higher Education

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.

In this hour-long podcast we feature the closing keynote address from the EDUCAUSE 2008 Midwest Regional Conference. The speech was delivered by Brad Wheeler, Vice President for IT, CIO, and Professor at Indiana University and is entitled, "Leading Ahead of the Curves". A PowerPoint Presentation is also available.

Three curves—technical possibility, social desirability, and economic feasibility over time—describe the forces that shape college and university IT challenges. The consumerization of technology, insourcing and outsourcing, edge or leveraged services on campus, and multi-institutional community source are timely opportunities for IT leaders who can wisely discern these curves.

This podcast features a keynote speech from the EDUCAUSE Mid-Atlantic Regional Conference 2008, featuring Malcolm B. Brown, Director of Academic Computing at Dartmouth College. His speech is entitled "Learning from the Future".

In this podcast we feature a conversation between George Siemens, Associate Director of the Learning Technologies Centre at the University of Manitoba. and Michael Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University It was recorded at the ELI 2008 Annual Meeting.

Michael Wesch presented a session entitled, "Human Futures for Technology and Education" at the ELI 2008 Annual Meeting. He also produced a video, which is referenced in this conversation, entitled "The Machine is Us/ing Us".

George Siemens presented a session entitled, "Connectivism" at the ELI 2008 Annual Meeting.

In this hour long podcast we feature a speech by Michael Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University, entitled, "Human Futures for Technology and Education". It was delivered at the ELI 2008 Annual Meeting.

Digital information technologies have profound implications for education and force us to rethink how we teach, what we teach, and who we think we are teaching. Understanding these implications and rethinking education will help us prepare our students to build a more human future in an increasingly digital environment.

In this 58 minute podcast, we feature a session by George Siemens, Associate Director for the Learning Technologies Centre at the University of Manitoba, entitled, "Connectivism". This speech was recorded at the ELI 2008 Meeting in San Antonio, Texas.

The waves of technological and social change have eroded the effectiveness of traditional views regarding what, how, and why to educate. To effectively educate learners, fundamental assertions need to be rethought: the design of schools and curriculum, the nature of knowledge in a connected world, the relationship between educator and learner, the means and methods of authenticating information and knowledge, and, perhaps most significantly, what it means “to know” in complex, rapidly developing, and chaotic environments. This session will present connectivism as a theory of learning that can bridge the rift between traditional and new educational approaches to prepare learners for the tomorrow they will inherit.

In this 20 minute podcast, we feature an interview with Jim Neal, Vice President for Information Services and University Librarian at Columbia University. He provides leadership for university academic computing and network services as well as a system of twenty-five libraries. He also works with the Electronic Publishing Initiative at Columbia (EPIC) and the Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning (CCNMTL). He serves on key academic, technology, budget and policy groups at the University.

Neal has also represented the American library community in testimony on copyright matters before Congressional committees and was an advisor to the U.S. delegation at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) diplomatic conference on copyright. He has worked on copyright policy and advisory groups for universities and professional and higher education associations. He was selected the 1997 Academic/Research Librarian of the Year by ALA's Association of College and Research Libraries.

In this 7 minute podcast, we feature an interview with Michael Zastrocky, Vice President and Research Director of Academic Strategies for Gartner, Incorporated. He presented a session at the EDUCAUSE 2007 Annual Conference entitled, "IT Leadership and the Role of the CIO: The Annual Gartner/EDUCAUSE Update".

In this 11 minute podcast, we feature a phone interview with David Ward, President of the American Council on Education. A leading spokesperson for American higher education, David Ward became the 11th president of the American Council on Education on September 1, 2001. Ward is chancellor emeritus of the University of Wisconsin•Madison and the former Charles Kendall Adams University Professor at UW•Madison. Ward participated in a panel session at the EDUCAUSE 2007 Annual Conference entitled, "The Role of Information Technology in an Age of Access, Affordability, and Accountability".

The closing keynote speech at the 2007 Educause Policy Conference was delivered by James X. Dempsey, Policy Director at the Center for Democracy and Technology in Washington, DC. The key concerns of higher education examined at the 2007 Policy Conference are also among the priorities of the Center for Democracy and Technology, which seeks to promote user empowerment, open access, and free expression. This speech, entitled "Why Higher Education Advocacy Matters on IT Policy", examines how and why the university and academic communities should continue their advocacy on these issues, with the goal of promoting innovation, trust, and access to information. This podcast has a runtime of approximately 25 minutes.