Features
- Using Classroom Clickers To Engage Every Student
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9/24/2008
"With clickers, you're giving every student a voice, even the introverts," according to Edna Ross, a resource teaching professor and the chair of the University Instructional Technology Committee in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of Louisville in Kentucky, speaking about classroom response systems.
- Education IT Spending, Fueled by Telecom, To Top $56 Billion by 2012
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9/19/2008
In the United States, IT spending in education will reach $47.7 billion by the end of this year and is expected to top $56 billion by 2012, according to a new report from Compass Intelligence, an IT consultancy and market research firm. This growth in education--both K-12 and higher ed--is being fueled in particular by expenditures in telecommunications, collaborative technologies, and outsourced IT services.
- Lumbering Global Economy Affects IT Industry
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9/18/2008
The sluggish global economy has migrated to the IT industry, according to a survey released recently by Forrester Research. The analyst firm's somewhat gloomy outlook says 43 percent of companies contacted have reduced their overall IT budgets this year, while 24 percent are curtailing discretionary spending.
- Is Blended Learning Effective?
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9/17/2008
Blended learning sounds like a nice idea--mixing a traditional classroom environment with online components--but is it actually effective? It seems almost intuitively obvious that it is. And with the explosion of blended course delivery in recent years, despite the dearth of research, clearly education institutions take that point for granted.
- VMworld Preview: VMware's Vision of Virtualization as the OS
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9/15/2008
The annual VMworld user conference gets underway today in Las Vegas, with the event's host betting big on a new strategy that redefines its market-leading virtualization management products. VMware is set to unveil plans to expand its flagship virtualization platform into something resembling an operating system, a new cloud computing initiative and the company's path toward a "universal client vision."
- Microsoft Releases More Virtualization Details
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9/11/2008
Microsoft, following its earlier announcement about new virtualization products and imminent releases, has filled in some details that give more shape to its vision.
- Small Georgia College Rolls Out 802.11n Network
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9/10/2008
Cost is an issue with any wireless network project, and, for the smallest schools, it can be an overriding factor. But 700-student Emmanuel College, located deep in Georgia, brought the cost of a new 802.11n network under control by initially focusing on strategic areas such as its residence halls. It's also saving money by eliminating the high cost of continual IT staff repairs to the previous wireless system.
- Office Live Workspace: Shadowed by Google Docs?
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9/9/2008
Microsoft last Wednesday touted the success of its online extension to Microsoft Office, a free browser-based application that's still in beta release. One million people so far have signed up to use the Microsoft Office Live Workspace Beta after six months of the beta's public availability, according to an announcement issued by the company.
- UCSD Plants Solar Trees on Parking Structures
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9/8/2008
University of California, San Diego is taking a novel approach to generating sustainable energy on its campus by transforming its parking garages into solar power plants. With the help of Envision Solar, the university is "planting" Solar Trees on the roofs of two of its parking structures to generate electricity for the campus and provide infrastructure for supporting electric vehicles.
- Fixed-Mobile Convergence: Dartmouth Beefs Up Cell Coverage, Cuts Costs
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9/4/2008
Problems with cell phone coverage aren't uncommon on college campuses. There are two main reasons: The beefy structure of historic buildings can block cellular reception within walls, and, on more remote campuses outside cities, signal coverage can be light.
- Tips for Getting Started with Educational Wikis
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9/3/2008
Campus Technology speaks with wiki expert Stewart Mader, who discusses choosing between commercial and open source wiki products, getting started with a wiki, and why Wikipedia is the single biggest stumbling block to wikis in higher education.
- Malware Dramatically Increasing; Almost All Users Have Clicked on Malicious Links
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9/2/2008
Web security services firm ScanSafe reported that the total number of Web-based malware blocks has increased by 87 percent in July 2008 compared to the previous month. Specifically, the first two weeks in July have shown an extraordinarily high volume of malware blocks. ScanSafe sells online security services, which scan Web requests from its customers and blocks malicious content.
- Saint Joseph Builds Out Wireless Network in Multi-year Upgrade
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8/28/2008
Saint Joseph's University has begun deploying a Meru Networks wireless local area network across its Philadelphia campus as part of a multi-year effort to bring wireless coverage to every building on campus.
- Bringing Composers into Classrooms Through Skype
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8/27/2008
Two Pennsylvania teaching colleagues with an interest in music and technology are bringing remote experts into classrooms at almost no cost, using Skype's free videoconferencing technology.
- Report: Green Efforts Improving on Campuses
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8/26/2008
More campuses in the United States have shifted their focus to environmental and sustainability programs, but funding and staffing issues have prevented them from implementing green initiatives on the scale campus administrators would like, according to a new report released recently by the National Wildlife Federation.
- Corralling Identity Management
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8/22/2008
The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston recently reconstituted its IT organization to include a new team focused solely on identity management. In the course of its work the team may end up becoming a model for how identity management can help deliver business value beyond standard IT duties, such as adding new users to the network.
- Higher Ed Growing into BI, Data Warehousing
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8/21/2008
As a long-time expert in data warehousing and business intelligence (BI), David Wells has seen the technologies gradually come into their own in higher education. Now a consultant--Wells was formerly director of education for The Data Warehousing Institute (TDWI), a sister institution of Campus Technology--he continues to advise colleges and universities on data warehousing and BI issues.
- The Power of Wikis in Higher Ed
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8/20/2008
Over the last six years, Stewart Mader has staked his career on the power of wikis. Mader first worked on wiki adoption initiatives in the IT department at Brown University, becoming fascinated by their power and potential. In this first half of a two-part interview, Mader talks about powerful ways to use wikis in education, content ownership issues, and how wikis tend to be used--and why.
- Video Spotlight: Campus Technology 2008 Keynote Address
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8/19/2008
Adrian Sannier, technology officer for Arizona State University, discusses strategies for putting in place ground-breaking plans that will serve the next generation of students. These are actionable visions that include strategic technology choices--advancements that may be unfamiliar or even unpopular at first, but which carry enormous potential.
- Higher Education Fertile Ground for 802.11n WiFi, ABI Reports
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8/14/2008
ABI Research has forecast that WiFi will be available in 99 percent of North American universities in 2013. Much of that penetration will be in the form of 802.11n equipment: Higher education is clearly the No. 1 market for early adopters of 802.11n.
- Open Source Brings Down Cost of Wireless Rollout
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8/13/2008
As any IT administrator knows, wireless deployments can be costly. On the other hand, with students demanding on-the-go access, pervasive WiFi networks are a must on campus.
- Drexel Sees 802.11n as Logical Leap
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8/7/2008
For colleges and universities considering a wireless network upgrade anytime soon, whether or not to go with the new, not-yet-final 802.11n standard is a tough call.
- IBM To Team with Linux Vendors on 'Microsoft-Free' PCs
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8/7/2008
IBM and name-brand Linux operating system distributors Red Hat, Novell, and Canonical/Ubuntu have disclosed their intentions to join forces with their hardware partners to create what they are calling "Microsoft-free personal computing choices."
- Textbook Publishing in a Flat World
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8/6/2008
According to the National Association of College Stores in a 2007 survey, the average cost of a new college textbook was $53. The founders of Flat World Knowledge, which launches with its first run of college textbooks this fall, consider that too high--so high, in fact, that they'll be offering textbooks for free, at least in versions that can be read online.
- Web Bazaar: The Problem of Abundance
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8/6/2008
Walking in the old part of Istanbul, the narrow street awash in shops, each with its appealing bins of gorgeous goods, I kept expecting to find a super market of some sort. But no supermarket ever appeared, just more miles of tiny shops. Welcome to Web 2.0.
