EDUCAUSE | Collaboration

Happy Families, Good Fences, and Winning IT Collaborations

ckeller — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 10:12:46 -0500

This ECAR research bulletin introduces the Amherst H. Wilder Foundation research on successful collaborative practices in the context of higher education. It details 20 collaborative success factors and maps them to relevant examples gleaned from research on IT collaboration conducted by ECAR.

Citation for this work: Pirani, Judith A., and Toby D. Sitko. “Happy Families, Good Fences, and Winning IT Collaborations” (Research Bulletin, Issue 15). Boulder, CO: EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research, 2008, available from http://www.educause.edu/ecar.

7 Things You Should Know About Wii

ckeller — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 10:53:36 -0500

The Wii is a video game system that uses a wireless controller capable of sensing position and motion, allowing users to interact with the game applications through physical movements. The controller has captured the interest of academic researchers and hackers, who have used the technology to create applications such as a collaborative choreography tool and an inexpensive, interactive whiteboard. Wii technology is used as an input device in virtual worlds and as a training tool that allows learners to perform physical tasks in a digital, risk-free environment.

The "7 Things You Should Know About..." series from the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) provides concise information on emerging learning technologies. Each brief focuses on a single technology and describes what it is, where it is going, and why it matters to teaching and learning. Use these briefs for a no-jargon, quick overview of a topic and share them with time-pressed colleagues.

In addition to the "7 Things You Should Know About…" briefs, you may find other ELI resources useful in addressing teaching, learning, and technology issues at your institution. To learn more, please visit the ELI Resources page.

Intellectual Fusion

elilly — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 11:50:22 -0500

Things to Do While Waiting for the Future to Happen: Building Cyberinfrastructure for the Liberal Arts

elilly — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 11:29:26 -0500

What is the current thinking about cyberinfrastructure for the liberal arts, what models for transinstitutional collaboration and institution building are emerging, and what steps can campuses take to move this agenda forward?

Beyond Being There: A Blueprint for Advancing the Design, Development, and Evaluation of Virtual Organizations

ckeller — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 17:01:37 -0500

This report is based primarily on a workshop involving 42 people from academia and industry.
The goal of the workshop was to share systematic knowledge about the components, characteristics,
practices, and transformative impact of effective VOs; identify topics for future research that will
inform the ongoing design, development, and analysis of VOs for science and engineering research
and education; and create a new cross-disciplinary VO research community to conduct research across
a range of important topics. A subsequent workshop brought together more than 200 practitioners and
VO researchers to discuss how to build effective virtual organizations, and some of the material from
that workshop is represented here.

Addressing Shared and Diverse Needs Through Collaboration

drupal — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 12:37:31 -0500

This poster will present an approach to designing a program and an enterprise-wide implementation that met disparate needs and goals. The defined processes and the role of each school, the instructional technology unit, and the office of associate provost in achieving shared and diverse goals will be showcased.

ELI In Conversation: The Fear 2.0 Group

gbayne — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 18:06:22 -0500

Web 2.0 tools have the power to transform education. Such a transformation requires that faculty, students, and institutions take risks. With those risks comes fear, which is often unarticulated. How do you tackle this fear and make real change?

In this 43 minute podcast we feature a conversation from the ELI 2008 Annual Meeting. Our particpants consist of a group of five higher ed professionals who co-presented the session, "Who's Afraid of Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and the Big Bad CMS? A Digi-Drama About Fear 2.0."

They include:

Laura Blankenship, Senior Instructional Technologist, Bryn Mawr College
Martha Burtis, Director, Teaching and Learning Technologies, University of Mary Washington
Barbara Ganley, Lecturer in English and Writing Program, Middlebury College
Leslie Madsen-Brooks, Teaching Resources Center, University of California, Davis
Barbara Sawhill, Director Cooper International Learning Center, Oberlin College

Australia's Digital Education Revolution

catherine — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 08:16:49 -0500

Check out this innovative series of multi-site symposia, organised by the Australian Council for Educational Research and education.au, which runs until 12 June. Mark Pesce's key note, 'Those Whacky Kids', will raise your eyebrows and make you think.

The symposia theme is "to explore and illuminate the possibilities and the realities of the implementation of the Digital Education revolution (DER)." Now, I think I get it with regards to the digital revolution, but I have to say, "DER" strikes me as a somewhat pointless acronym, and an unintentionally humorous one at that. More creative thinking hats, and more collaborative events like this one, please -- and less acronyms.

ExitReality: Is Web3.D Here?

joeclark — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 09:14:25 -0500

Posted more about this on my personal blog (be sure to see the posts about EduPunk and Tag Galaxy as well).
The new ExitReality plugin extrudes every webpage into 3D, and page owners can customize the 3D elements. Visitors appear as customizable avatars and can chat with each other. Certain services have preset "room" designs, such as the nightclub look for MySpace profiles or the art gallery design for Flickr pages.
Worth a look! So far, it's Windows-only.

Large-Scale Open Source E-Learning Systems at Open University UK

gdobbin — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 08:25:04 -0500

This ECAR research bulletin examines the factors leading to the selection of the open source learning management system at the Open University, details the many aspects of development work that had to be undertaken, and describes the issues involved for institutions participating in an open source community. It also looks at some of the many business and cultural challenges the institution has faced, and at how faculty are being encouraged to move toward a model of education incorporating increasing amounts of e-learning content and activity.
Ccitation for this work: Sclater, Niall. “Large-Scale Open Source E-Learning Systems at Open University UK” (Research Bulletin, Issue 12). Boulder, CO: EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research, 2008, available from http://www.educause.edu/ecar.