More than ever, faculty and students are working jointly on documents sharing screens in class, swapping course materials and taking their collective pulse through polls. Nevertheless, many faculty members complain that technical support for group projects is lagging on campus, leaving them searching for solutions elsewhere. While some faculty…

Many districts around the country face some issues as they launch their own bring-your-own-device (BYOD) initiatives. Putting aside the instructional questions, the infrastructure issues alone can be daunting. In this article, four K-12 technology leaders from all over the United States describe the paths they took to BYOD, the preparations they…

There is a civil war simmering in classrooms nationwide. Arrayed on one side are students who would sooner cut off an arm than sacrifice their mobile devices. On the other stand faculty members who expect to be the focal point of their classes and will not abide distractions. Caught in the crossfire are instructional technology professionals.…

Ten years ago, integrating videoconferencing into a college course required considerable effort on the part of the instructor and IT support staff. Today, video- and web-conferencing tools are more sophisticated. Distance education has morphed from audio- and videocassettes featuring talking heads to a more interactive experience with greater…

With collaborative learning one of the hottest buzzwords in higher education today, it is tempting to believe that schools have taken to the concept like ducks to water. Sadly, that is not the case. The old-style lecture format has been employed for so long that faculty--even students--often struggle to transition to a more engaged approach to…

Soon after the iPad's release in 2010, several universities decided to issue the devices to all incoming freshmen. At the time, critics scoffed at the moves as little more than marketing gimmicks designed to attract students. In truth, few of the schools required instructors to design curriculum around the iPad or had specific plans to measure…

January brings many opportunities for change. The new year also allows district technology leaders and innovators to reflect on how the rapid pace of technological change is impacting what happens in their classrooms. Instructional technologies that were all the rage a year ago (netbooks) can be swept aside by this year's favorite (iPads).…

This is the first article in a six-part series on the elements of a collaborative classroom: furniture, social media, video/web conferencing tools, collaborative software, interactive devices, and mobile devices. With most universities facing tight budgets, convincing administrators to invest in expensive new classrooms is a challenge. Many higher…

Out of a total of 393 entries for the 2011 Campus Technology Innovators award, 10 winners rose to the top in six categories: (1) Leadership, Governance, and Policy; (2) Teaching and Learning; (3) Student Systems and Services; (4) Administrative Systems; (5) IT Infrastructure and Systems; and (6) Education Futurists. These innovative IT leaders…

In many ways, specialized computer labs are the black holes of IT organizations. Budgets, equipment, employees--even space itself--are sucked in. Given a choice, many IT shops would engage warp drive and escape their gravitational pull forever. While Captain Kirk might have looked to Scotty for a fix to the problem, colleges and universities are…

As soon as the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) announced last May that it would be giving all 400 incoming freshmen Apple iPads, a lively debate broke out online at TUAW.com (The Unofficial Apple Weblog) between people who saw it as a marketing gimmick to attract students and others who believed it was an honest attempt to implement a new…

In this era of political rancor when everything is a zero-sum game, it is refreshing to think that two parties could actually come together to create a win-win situation. That is exactly what is happening, though, as a number of universities take on the role of application service provider (ASP) for smaller schools. It is not all confetti and…

This article features new library designs that offer flexible, people-centric, tech-driven environments that reflect the increasingly synergetic nature of today's campuses. Among these new library designs is the University of Calgary's Taylor Family Digital Library, a 265,000-square-foot building scheduled to open in fall 2010 and touted as the…

In a 2008 survey of students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, 82 percent of undergraduate respondents said they preferred courses with online lecture content, and 60 percent said they would even be willing to pay for lecture capture services. Colleges and universities that have gone down the lecture capture path have found four essential…

Implementing a complex business intelligence (BI) system at a small school or one with limited resources can seem daunting. For small to midsize schools and community colleges, a strategic BI initiative may still be an elusive goal. This article discusses how schools with limited resources are making the dream a reality.