Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 20, No. 439.
Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
www.kcl.ac.uk/schools/humanities/cch/research/publications/humanist.html
www.princeton.edu/humanist/
Submit to: humanist_at_princeton.edu
Date: Sat, 03 Feb 2007 10:14:02 +0000
From: "Carolyn Kotlas" <kotlas_at_email.unc.edu>
Subject: TL Infobits -- January 2007
TL INFOBITS January 2007 No. 7 ISSN: Not Yet=
Assigned
About INFOBITS
INFOBITS is an electronic service of The University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill ITS Teaching and Learning division. Each month the
ITS-TL's Information Resources Consultant monitors and selects from a
number of information and instructional technology sources that come to
her attention and provides brief notes for electronic dissemination to
educators.
NOTE: You can read the Web version of this issue at
http://its.unc.edu/tl/infobits/bitjan07.php.
You can read all back issues of Infobits at
http://its.unc.edu/tl/infobits/.
......................................................................
Online Education Trends
2007 Horizon Report on Emerging Technologies
Social Software in Education
Are Academic Libraries Still Necessary?
Recommended Reading
Infobits Subscribers -- Where Were We in 2006?
......................................................................
ONLINE EDUCATION TRENDS
"Making the Grade: Online Education in the United States, 2006" is the
fourth annual report on the state of online learning in U.S. higher
education conducted by the Babson Survey Research Group and the Sloan
Consortium. The report, based on responses from over 2,200 colleges and
universities, addresses these questions:
-- Has the growth of online enrollments begun to plateau?
-- Who is learning online?
-- What types of institutions have online offerings?
-- Have perceptions of quality changed for online offerings?
-- What are the barriers to widespread adoption of online education?
For more information or to download the complete report, go to
http://www.sloan-c.org/publications/survey/pdf/making_the_grade.pdf.
The Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C) is a consortium of institutions and
organizations committed "to help learning organizations continually
improve quality, scale, and breadth of their online programs according
to their own distinctive missions, so that education will become a part
of everyday life, accessible and affordable for anyone, anywhere, at
any time, in a wide variety of disciplines." Sloan-C is funded by the
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. For more information, see
http://www.sloan-c.org/.
For a related article, see:
"The Invisible Professor and the Future of Virtual Faculty"
By Martha C. Sammons, Wright State University, and Stephen Ruth, George
Mason University
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INSTRUCTIONAL TECHNOLOGY AND DISTANCE LEARNING
January 2007
http://www.itdl.org/Journal/Jan_07/article01.htm
"Although the online teaching continues to grow in popularity, it
places greater demands on faculty than traditional courses. The Sloan
report found that this problem exists at all levels of postsecondary
education, from doctoral-granting institutions to community colleges. A
significant number of full-time professors are thus understandably
reluctant to participate in distance learning, and faculty questions
about online teaching continue. Traditional professors are disappearing
from online classrooms as distance learning has altered their roles and
responsibilities, as well as their professional status, job security,
workload, rewards, and intellectual freedom. This article delineates
some of the most significant challenges and suggests that distance
learning has created new questions about the future of virtual
faculty."
......................................................................
2007 HORIZON REPORT ON EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES
The 2007 Horizon Report is a collaboration between the New Media
Consortium and the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative that "seeks to identify
and describe emerging technologies likely to have a large impact on
teaching, learning, or creative expression within higher education."
Some key trends that the report calls attention to include
-- Increasing globalization is changing the way we work, collaborate,
and communicate.
-- Information literacy increasingly should not be considered a given.
-- Academic review and faculty rewards are increasingly out of sync
with new forms of scholarship.
-- The notions of collective intelligence and mass amateurization are
pushing the boundaries of scholarship.
-- Students' views of what is and what is not technology are
increasingly different from those of faculty.
The complete report is available at
http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2007_Horizon_Report.pdf.
The New Media Consortium (NMC) is an "international 501(c)3
not-for-profit consortium of nearly 200 leading colleges, universities,
museums, corporations, and other learning-focused organizations
dedicated to the exploration and use of new media and new
technologies." For more information, go to http://www.nmc.org/.
The EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) is a "strategic initiative of
EDUCAUSE. While EDUCAUSE serves those interested in advancing higher
education through technology, ELI specifically explores innovative
technologies and practices that advance learning." For more
information, go to http://www.educause.edu/content.asp?Section_ID=3D86.
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SOCIAL SOFTWARE IN EDUCATION
The growing popularity of social software (e.g., instant messaging,
blogs, wikis, Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, YouTube) among college
students raises questions on how can these tools be used to support
instruction. Here are some resources that address the topic and/or
provide background information on the tools.
"Social Networking Websites and Teens: An Overview"
Pew Internet & American Life Project report
http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/198/report_display.asp
"More than half (55%) of all online American youths ages 12-17
use online social networking sites, according to a new national survey
of teenagers conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. The
survey also finds that older teens, particularly girls, are more likely
to use these sites. For girls, social networking sites are primarily
places to reinforce pre-existing friendships; for boys, the networks
also provide opportunities for flirting and making new friends."
"Digital Rendezvous: Social Software in Higher Education"
EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research
Research Bulletin, vol. 2007, issue 2, January 16, 2007
http://www.educause.edu/LibraryDetailPage/666?ID=3DERB0702
(Registration required to access this report.)
"The origins of social software -- from blogs to facebooks to
instant messaging to wikis -- are firmly based in the information
technologies of the past few decades. This research bulletin explores
the genesis of some of the current social software products, helps
define common characteristics, describes how the software is being used
in higher education, and examines the implications for activities in
colleges and universities."
The EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative's "7 Things You Should Know About..."
(http://www.educause.edu/7ThingsYouShouldKnowAboutSeries/7495) series
provides concise information on emerging learning technologies
including briefings on
YouTube
http://www.educause.edu/LibraryDetailPage/666?ID=3DELI7018
Facebook
http://www.educause.edu/LibraryDetailPage/666?ID=3DELI7017
Instant Messaging
http://www.educause.edu/LibraryDetailPage/666?ID=3DELI7008
Blogs
http://www.educause.edu/LibraryDetailPage/666?ID=3DELI7006
Wikis
http://www.educause.edu/LibraryDetailPage/666?ID=3DELI7004
Social Bookmarking
http://www.educause.edu/LibraryDetailPage/666?ID=3DELI7001
......................................................................
ARE ACADEMIC LIBRARIES STILL NECESSARY?
"Conventional wisdom among college and university students (and many of
their parents) in early 2007 is that "everything needed for research is
available free on the Web." Therefore, academic libraries are often
viewed as costly dinosaurs=97unnecessary expenses in today's environment.
This idea is uninformed at best and foolish at worst."
In "If the Academic Library Ceased to Exist, Would We Have to Invent
It?" (EDUCAUSE REVIEW, vol. 42, no. 1, January/February 2007, pp. 6-7)
Lynn Scott Cochrane argues that "if college and university libraries
and librarians didn't exist, we would certainly have to invent=97better
yet, re-invent=97them." The article is available at
http://www.educause.edu/apps/er/erm07/erm0714.asp.
EDUCAUSE Review [ISSN 1527-6619], a bimonthly print magazine that
explores developments in information technology and education, is
published by EDUCAUSE (http://www.educause.edu/). Articles from current
and back issues of EDUCAUSE Review are available on the Web at
http://www.educause.edu/pub/er/.
......................................................................
RECOMMENDED READING
"Recommended Reading" lists items that have been recommended to me or
that Infobits readers have found particularly interesting and/or
useful, including books, articles, and websites published by Infobits
subscribers. Send your recommendations to carolyn_kotlas_at_unc.edu for
possible inclusion in this column.
Infobits subscriber Arun-Kumar Tripathi (arun.tripathi_at_waoe.org)
recommends DEMOCRATIZING TECHNOLOGY: BUILDING ON ANDREW FEENBERG'S
CRITICAL THEORY OF TECHNOLOGY, edited by Tyler J. Veak (SUNY Press,
2006; ISBN: 0-7914-6918-2 pbk).
The book is a festschrift honoring Feenberg, who is Canada Research
Chair in Philosophy of Technology, School of Communication at Simon
Fraser University.
"Largely because of the Internet and the new economy, technology has
become the buzzword of our culture. But what is it, and how does it
affect our lives? More importantly, can we control and shape it, or
does it control us? In short, can we make technology more democratic?
Using the work of Andrew Feenberg, one of the most important and
original figures in the field of philosophy of technology, as a
foundation, the contributors to this volume explore these important
questions and Feenberg responds."
You can preview portions of the book online through Google Books:
http://books.google.com/.
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INFOBITS SUBSCRIBERS -- WHERE WERE WE IN 2006?
Each January issue of Infobits includes an annual subscriber tally
listing the countries represented by our subscribers. At the end of
2006, there were 7,422 subscribers. Here are some brief statistics
about our current subscribers.
The majority of the subscribers we could identify by country are in the
United States (3,516) and other English-speaking countries: Canada
(442), Australia (265), and the United Kingdom (162).
Each of the following countries has between eleven and forty-two
subscribers: Belgium, Brazil, Germany, Hong Kong, Israel, Italy, Japan,
Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa,
Spain, and Sweden.
Each of the following countries has 10 or fewer subscribers: Argentina,
Austria, Bolivia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Brunei Darussalam, Chile, China,
Colombia, Croatia, Cuba, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic,
Ecuador, Egypt, Estonia, Fiji, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary,
Iceland, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Macedonia, Mauritius, Micronesia,
Mongolia, Morocco, Namibia, Norway, Pakistan, Peru, Phillipines,
Portugal, Romania, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, Slovenia, South
Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey,
Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, Uruguay, Venezuela, and Yugoslavia.
In addition to subscribers whom we can positively identify by a
geographic location, the following sites don't have a geographic
designation: 1,696 subscribers from commercial (.com) sites, 192
subscribers from .org sites, and 625 subscribers from .net sites.
Many thanks to all the subscribers for your support in 2006!
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Received on Sat Feb 03 2007 - 05:30:51 EST
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