Mobile technology is a favorite discussion topic among senior IT leaders and higher education administrators. Mobile is the future for content delivery. Colleges and universities need to establish a strategy now and make the decisions necessary to take advantage of this communication opportunity. In this article, the author recommends making…

Wikipedia is an online free-content encyclopedia that anyone can edit and an efficient way to marshal the talents of many bright, capable people to produce knowledge. But the real significance of Wikipedia and similar Web 2.0 technologies is the way in which they organize people and activities, not simply the way in which they create and…

Student engagement is perhaps the key element for almost any learning context. When engaged, learners are enthusiastic and excited about the subject. Their work is informed by the enjoyment of discovery. Engaged learners work willingly, instead of by coercion, and approach their assignments as something that matters to them personally. The spirit…

Increased openness, two-way dialogue, and blurred distinctions between experts and amateurs have combined with numerous technology tools for dialogue, personal expression, networking, and community formation to "remake" conferences, influencing not only how attendees participate in but also how organizers host conferences today. (Contains 31…

Cyberinfrastructure permits a new kind of scholarly inquiry and education, empowering communities to innovate and to revolutionize what they do, how they do it, and who participates. (Contains 6 notes.)

Drawn from a recent ECAR research study, this article addresses the importance of five CI technologies to various academic areas in research and in teaching and learning at present and how survey respondents think the importance of these technologies might change in the near future. (Contains 2 figures, 2 tables and 7 notes.)

Over the last decade, as educators have increasingly experimented with social technologies and interactive pedagogies, the concept of a "course" has been significantly challenged. In particular, questions have arisen as to the key value of the course in the educational system. The numerous high-profile open courseware initiatives from elite…

Providing an evolving foundation for 21st-century research and education, cyberinfrastructure is both a focus for invention and an accelerator of innovation, linked through a trajectory that begins with design and evolves to broad-based use. (Contains 1 figure, 1 table and 11 notes.)

Handwritten notes, meeting for coffee, eye contact, a handshake, a smile--are these social practices of yesteryear, soon to be replaced by the "wall posts" and "pokes" of today's social networking technologies? Although advances in social networking technologies allow for new and perhaps more efficient means of learning and…

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? (Contains 23 notes.)

Higher education is moving closer to an online learning environment that captures the social vitality and collaborative spirit of the real-world campus. A growing open source community of learning researchers, software architects, visualization and simulation specialists, and user interface designers has taken up the challenge, lending their…

After becoming a podcasting convert, the author talked with other students at colleges and universities across North America about their iPod and MP3 use, their familiarity with podcasting, and how they see podcasting as part of the classroom. As more and more colleges and universities jump on board the podcasting bandwagon, it's vital that…

The gaps between students' and faculty members' use of technology have widened. Many faculty members today have become so inundated with digital communications from students that it is not unusual for communication protocols and limitations to be specified in course syllabi. Most faculty members have home access to campus resources and use a…

This document briefly discusses how headlines initially seem to be irrelevant to e-content, until the reader looks further. Examples of headlines are listed in this document. It is suggested that things may be clearer if some headlines from outside of mainstream or popular news publications are added. Examples of these are also listed.

Information technology has had a striking impact on learners and learning. The world of learning technology today is radically different from that of just a decade ago, and the world of learning technology a decade from now will be radically different from that of today. Learning technologies are in a state of "interpretive flexibility": the…