California Virtual Campus

Web 2.0 is best defined not as a technology development but as a moment of disrupted equilibrium in our culture. Our culture is redefining itself and we are redefining how we see learning. It is time for educators to get out of the box of seat time, finally, and consider evidence-based learning.

Our current educational habits suddenly seem antiquated. People at conferences in the past few months seem to know we are at a turning point. It’s been more than a century since the basic terms of teaching and learning in the U.S. have fundamentally changed. One of these terms, the practice of learners meeting teachers in a room, has persisted longer, over many centuries.

By Trent Batson

Read Campus Technology

California State University runs Merlot, a searchable collection of peer-reviewed, online multimedia materials. Connexions, from Rice University in Houston, stores free, open-licensed educational materials in fields such as music, electrical engineering and psychology.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s OpenCourseWare has placed virtually its entire curricula online — video lectures, problems sets and exams for more than 1,800 courses in 33 disciplines.

by Gale Holland

Read Los Angeles Times

COUNT me a technological optimist, but I have always thought that the people who advocate putting computers in classrooms as a way to transform education were well intentioned but wide of the mark. It’s not the problem, and it’s not the answer.

Yet as a new school year begins, the time may have come to reconsider how large a role technology can play in changing education. There are promising examples, both in the United States and abroad, and they share some characteristics. The ratio of computers to pupils is one to one. Technology isn’t off in a computer lab. Computing is an integral tool in all disciplines, always at the ready.

By Steve Lohr

Read The New York Times

Online video is currently the buzz topic dominating news cycles — technology, content, search, distribution, syndication, aggregation, advertising, widgets … OK, I think you get it. The migration of content delivery has done just that: migrated. Consumption of online video has shifted from cable TV, to satellite and digital video recorder, and now to the Internet. Because of this, individuals are taking the term “on-demand” much more seriously. People have less time and don’t want to be limited in what they are able to view.

By Dale Bock

Read Tech News World

For more than twenty years, we educational technologists have talked about “integrating information technology into higher education.” We have claimed, “It’s not about the technology, it’s about teaching and learning.” And, we have assured faculty members, “They [the machines] are just tools.” In all cases, the implication was that education would stay the same and information technology would benignly slip in and cause no ruckus at all.

by Trent Batson

Read Campus Technology

Facebook has overtaken MySpace as the top global social network with 132 million unique visitors for a staggering 153 percent growth rate, according to comScore. MySpace is second at 113 million visitors, and Hi5 grew its global audience 100 percent to land at 56 million unique visitors. A new report from the online tracking company shows global usage of social networking sites growing 25 percent since June 2007. The U.S., however, saw the phenomenon cool off somewhat to 9 percent growth year-over-year.

By Renay San Miguel

Read Tech News World

As more of the student population gets access to broadband connections, faculty at major universities are exploring how rich media and online interactivity can enhance, supplement, and even replace the classroom experience. In the latest development, a professor at the University of Texas at Dallas is going to experiment with replicating a graduate seminar online in order to serve a very specific function: providing graduate students at other institutions with access to a course that isn’t offered by their university.

by John Timmer

Read Ars Technica

Yesterday I posted an article on the environmental and human rights disaster that computer “recycling” is creating in countries like Ghana and Nigeria. Today, I contacted Greenpeace’s Casey Harrell (from their Toxics Division) to follow up and determine if we can do anything within Ed Tech to dispose of our e-waste responsibly.

by Christopher Dawson

Read Education IT

Researchers have announced a technological development they say will improve the functionality of digital cameras and other imaging products. Yonggang Huang, a professor at Northwestern University, and John Rogers of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have created a lens they said was inspired by the human eye. In addition to enhancing digital camera technology, the eye-shaped lens could have an impact on many devices, Huang said. “Camera technologies can benefit directly from these advances,” he told TechNewsWorld.

By Walaika Haskins

Read Tech News World

Mozilla has announced its new Mozilla Labs Concept Series and issued a call for participation from anyone interested in submitting a concept, idea or mock-up. The new initiative, Mozilla said, is intended to makes it easy for anyone interested to contribute to the development of the online experience — no programming experience necessary. However, the software maker said it is particularly interested in connecting with thinkers from outside of the open source field.

by Walaika Haskins

Read Tech News World