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…

For tech-savvy educators looking to connect with students, social media have a powerful allure: Not only are sites such as Facebook and Twitter inherently designed for discussion and the exchange of ideas, but most students are already immersed in the technology. While these sites have their critics, social media's potential for collaboration is…

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…

The first five articles of this series on technologies that enable collaboration, highlighted ways to foster shared learning experiences among students. For this, the final installment, focus is shifted to teachers. States, districts, and groups of teachers are enhancing their collaboration opportunities through synchronous online meetings and…

Are colleges and universities doing enough to take advantage of Web 2.0 and social networking tools in their recruitment and retention efforts? "Not even close," says Sam Richard, a 23-year-old junior in the College of Public Programs at Arizona State University in Phoenix. Richard is one of six students in ASU's Student Ambassadors for…

Students at Tompkins Cortland Community College (commonly known as TC3) in upstate New York can use mobile phones to check their grades and course schedules, sign up for text alerts about class cancellations, and view a campus weather cam. They can even view their debit card account balances--all courtesy of the TC3 Mobile portal. The students at…