Protecting one's institution's technology assets and resources is all about maximizing return on those investments--and that means driving users to take full advantage of new technology rollouts, and not sapping or overburdening help desk resources because users are not fully versed in and encouraged to use new tools. That means one will need to…

If a school is seeking to incorporate more collaborative approaches to teaching and learning, the design of the learning environment--whether it's a classroom or a more informal space--can be a critical factor in making this transformative move. Technology, in particular, can play a pivotal role in enabling students to work effectively in teams…

Like fine wines, Web 2.0 technologies get better with age. Gone are the days of the pointless chat room; this is the era of social networking juggernauts such as Facebook, MySpace, and Friendster. Services offered by these firms are helpful in facilitating connections among users in every industry and of every age. In higher education, however, a…

As the national economic climate worsens, and college and university endowments, coffers, and funding sources shrink, schools are forced to get the most out of every dollar. That means that administrators are bending over backwards to see that all new investments provide maximum return on investment (ROI) over the long term. Campus eCommerce is no…

When it comes to getting the most out of IT, the majority of two-year schools face very real challenges. For starters, community college budgets are generally smaller than those of most four-year schools. Then, of course, there's the issue of refresh: Because students come and go every two years, there's the expectation that schools will…

Multi-user virtual environments (MUVEs) are gaining momentum as the latest and greatest learning tool in the world of education technology. How does one get started with them? How do they work? This article shares 13 secrets from immersive education experts and educators on how to have success in implementing these new tools and technologies on…

When Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduced the company's iPod in October 2001, it was the first portable media player of its kind, and he predicted the technology would change the educational landscape forever. Today, more than six years later, a growing number of educators are using the iPod and a bevy of other tools to supplement lessons with that…

Everyone seems to have a different definition for "Web 2.0," but most people agree the phrase describes a second generation of web-based communities and hosted services that aim to facilitate creativity, collaboration, and sharing between users. Technically speaking, these new technologies include blogs, wikis, folksonomies…

There is no shortage of online learning platforms available today. Whether it is Blackboard (www.blackboard.com), Desire2Learn (www.desire2learn.com), Sakai (www.sakaiproject.org), Moodle (www.moodle.org), Angel Learning (www.angellearning.com), Datatel (projected to be a CMS player in Q4 2008; www.datatel.com, or another product, chances are that…

Wikis and blogs may be today's Web 2.0 darlings, but forward-looking institutions are going after the next big thing: collaboration in real time. As mainstream technology has advanced and the cost of web conferencing has dropped, a growing number of institutions are finding creative ways to achieve synchronous collaboration. What's more, the…

Building access control (BAC)--a catchall phrase to describe the systems that control access to facilities across campus--has traditionally been handled with remarkably low-tech solutions: (1) manual locks; (2) electronic locks; and (3) ID cards with magnetic strips. Recent improvements have included smart cards and keyless solutions that make use…

Some of the worst collateral damage from a tragedy does not occur till after the smoke clears; namely, the usurping of the name of the location where the event took place, which over time gets repurposed into metaphor and served as a caveat. Vietnam has resonated for decades as a reference to protracted war. Kent State is likewise laden with…

Among the old-school resources that the digital age is making obsolete, or at least less consequential, count the chalkboard. For decades, the chalkboard was the focal point of all instruction, the big screen on which teachers wrote out and directed lesson after lesson after lesson. Today, while chalkboards still exist, they are losing their…

Across the country, public and private school districts alike are hiring CIOs and IT managers with volumes of experience in the business world. The thinking behind this trend is simple: Hire someone from the private sector and he or she will run the district's IT like a business. For the big-city district of Chicago Public Schools (CPS), the…

There was a time when being a teacher at Lenawee Intermediate School District (MI) meant getting in line--a long line--if a teacher wished to get hold of audiovisual equipment for the class. Teachers had to reserve the equipment weeks in advance. Next, once the time came to use it, representatives from the district's A/V department had to quite…