Podcasts and Higher Education Transformation

This 57 minute podcast features the opening keynote address from the EDUCAUSE 2008 Midwest Regional Conference. The speech was delivered by Susan E. Metros, Deputy CIO & Associate Vice Provost at the University of Southern California, and is entitled, "Challenging IT Leaders to Mashup, Twitter, Tag, and Poke: New IT Strategies for a Digital Society".

Today's youth are digitally titillated, visually stimulated, and socially connected. To educate and engage this new breed of learners, institutions of higher education are revisiting and revising the basic tenants of a general education by asking, What does it means to be literate in today's society? As educators transform the way they teach and conduct research, IT leaders also must alter their institution's IT strategy to best support a mobile, global digital citizenry.

Welcome to the premiere episode of EDUCAUSE Now!

EDUCAUSE Now is a monthly podcast, focusing on the intelligent use of information technology in higher education. Each episode features a variety of stories, interviews, and views that relate to IT in higher education. EDUCAUSE Now will also inform you about upcoming events, report on past events, and feature the movers and shakers in policy, teaching and learning, security, and a whole host of other important topics for our members. Let us know what you would like to hear at podcast@educause.edu.

This episode of EDUCAUSE Now features:

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 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".

This 41 minute presentation by Alma Clayton-Pedersen provides coverage of the 2005 EDUCAUSE Annual Conference Session entitled Designs for Learning to Meet 21st Century Expectations.

This 40 minute presentation by Ronald Bleed provides coverage of the 2005 EDUCAUSE Annual Conference Session entitled Rewind to Fast Forward.