A rubric for evaluating e-learning tools in higher education — from er.educause.edu by Lauren Anstey and Gavan Watson
The Rubric for E-Learning Tool Evaluation offers educators a framework, with criteria and levels of achievement, to assess the suitability of an e-learning tool for their learners’ needs and for their own learning outcomes and classroom context.

Excerpt:

We organized our rubric’s evaluation criteria into eight categories (functionality; accessibility; technical; mobile design; privacy, data protection, and rights; social presence; teaching presence; cognitive presence). Each category has a specific set of characteristics, or criteria, against which e-learning tools are evaluated, and each criterion is assessed against three standards: works well, minor concerns, or serious concerns. Finally, the rubric offers individual descriptions of the qualities an e-learning tool must have to achieve a standard.

Although our rubric integrates a broad range of functional, technical, and pedagogical criteria, it is not intended to be overly prescriptive. Our goal is for the framework to respond to an instructor’s needs and be adapted as appropriate. For example, when a rubric criterion is not relevant to the assessment of a particular tool, it can be excluded without impacting the overall quality of the assessment.

The rubric reflects our belief that instructors should choose e-learning tools in the context of the learning experience. We therefore encourage an explicit alignment between the instructor’s intended outcomes and the tool, based on principles of constructive alignment. Given the diversity of outcomes across learning experiences, e-learning tools should be chosen on a case-by-case basis and should be tailored to each instructor’s intended learning outcomes and planned instructional activities. We designed the rubric with this intention in mind.

The Rubric for E-Learning Tool Evaluation offers educators a framework, with criteria and levels of achievement, to assess the suitability of an e-learning tool for their learners’ needs and for their own learning outcomes and classroom context. The rubric was designed with utility in mind: it is intended to help decision-makers independently evaluate e-learning tools.

 

 

 

Campus Technology recently announced the recipients of the 2018 Campus Technology Impact Awards.

 

Campus Technology recently announced the recipients of the 2018 Campus Technology Impact Awards.

 

Categories include:

  • Teaching and Learning
  • Education Futurists
  • Student Systems & Services
  • Administration
  • IT Infrastructure & Systems

 

From DSC:
Having served as one of the judges for these competitions during the last several years, I really appreciate the level of innovation that’s been displayed by many of the submissions and the individuals/institutions behind them. 

 

 

Grand Rapids Community College offers free laptop vending machine — from mlive.com by Monica Scott

Excerpt:

GRAND RAPIDS, MI – Grand Rapids Community College (GRCC) is among higher education institutions providing free laptop vending machines to give students greater access to technology and more flexibility.

Retrieving a laptop from the machine is as quick and easy as grabbing chips from a vending machine. A student punches in their last name on the touchscreen, swipes their student ID, and out pops one of the 12 Dell laptops.

The fully charged computers are available for four hours. Students simply return them back to the machine when done. The machine automatically wipes it clean of their work and recharges it for the next person.

 

 

 

 

 

12 bad communication habits to break in IT — from enterprisersproject.com by Carla Rudder
Do you start conversations on the wrong note? Deliver the right message at the wrong time? CIOs share the communication traps that hold individuals and teams back

Excerpt:

Time and time again, CIOs and IT leaders tell us that communication is key to driving great business results. Whether IT leaders are grappling with digital transformation, trying to improve DevOps results, or leading IT culture change, communication often becomes a make-or-break factor in their ability to succeed.

But, like other “soft skills” and emotional intelligence competencies, communication skills aren’t easy to master. And over time, many people fall into bad communication habits that never get repaired.

We asked business and IT leaders to share some of the worst communication practices that hold individuals and teams back. If you are working on increasing transparency between IT and other teams, consider this your checklist for what NOT to do. Also, if you’re a rising IT leader who wants to shine in the eyes of the CIO, listen up…

 

 

 
 

Top 10 IT Issues, 2018: The Remaking of Higher Education – from er.educause.edu by Susan Grajek and the 2017–2018 Educause IT Issues Panel

2018 Top 10 IT Issues

  1. Information Security: Developing a risk-based security strategy that keeps pace with security threats and challenges
  2. Student Success: Managing the system implementations and integrations that support multiple student success initiatives
  3. Institution-wide IT Strategy: Repositioning or reinforcing the role of IT leadership as an integral strategic partner of institutional leadership in achieving institutional missions
  4. Data-enabled Institutional Culture: Using BI and analytics to inform the broad conversation and answer big questions
  5. Student-centered Institution: Understanding and advancing technology’s role in defining the student experience on campus (from applicants to alumni)
  6. Higher Education Affordability: Balancing and rightsizing IT priorities and budget to support IT-enabled institutional efficiencies and innovations in the context of institutional funding realities
  7. IT Staffing and Organizational Models: Ensuring adequate staffing capacity and staff retention in the face of retirements, new sourcing models, growing external competition, rising salaries, and the demands of technology initiatives on both IT and non-IT staff
  8. (tie) Data Management and Governance: Implementing effective institutional data governance practices
  9. (tie) Digital Integrations: Ensuring system interoperability, scalability, and extensibility, as well as data integrity, standards, and governance, across multiple applications and platforms
  10. Change Leadership: Helping institutional constituents (including the IT staff) adapt to the increasing pace of technology change

 

 

Also see:

2018 Top 10 IT Issues — from educause.edu

Excerpt:

The Remaking of Higher Education
Higher education’s biggest concerns are converging with technology’s greatest capabilities. Evidence is mounting that digital technology is a major differentiator and a key to productivity and success within higher education. The 2018 Top 10 Issues reveal the broader strategic impact of technology on the entire institution.

IT organizations will be focusing on four areas this year:

  • Institutional adaptiveness
  • IT adaptiveness
  • Improved student outcomes
  • Improved decision-making

IT organizations won’t focus on these areas alone. Leaders from across campus are invested collaborators with IT. When information technology brings strategic value, the solutions and the technologies that power them are less important than the people, processes, and culture—which make all the difference in the 2018 Top 10 IT Issues.

 

 

Also see:

Strategic IT and the 2018 Top 10 IT Issues — from er.educause.edu by John O’Brien
While those of us in campus IT organizations have long considered the topic of technology as a strategic asset, this year—the 20th anniversary of EDUCAUSE—may well mark a far broader realization of information technology as a strategic asset for higher education.

Excerpt:

Still, the landscape and strategic placement of technology has changed. IT advances are constant, not occasional, and technology on campus is ubiquitous and enterprise-critical. Meanwhile, presidents, provosts, and boards — under considerable pressure to improve student success — appreciate that technology offers some of the brightest hopes for moving this hard-to-move needle. For this reason, among others, student success became the foundational focus of the 2017 Top 10 IT Issues. And the 2016 Top 10 IT Issues stressed the degree to which information technology is an institutional differentiator when it comes to not only student success but also affordability, teaching, and research excellence.

It’s one thing, of course, to ask ourselves about the strategic nature of information technology and quite another to find evidence that those outside the IT organization are experiencing this strategic sea change. Yet in recent months we’ve seen exactly that. One example is the American College President Study 2017, from the American Council on Education (ACE). Written by and for college and university presidents, the report advises presidents to attend fully to technology, especially “using analytics functions to make better decisions and leveraging technology to scale out quality, cost-effective best practices.”

 

 

From DSC:
I appreciate the following statement — and have often reflected upon its truth:

While those of us in campus IT organizations have long considered the topic of technology as a strategic asset, this year—the 20th anniversary of EDUCAUSE—may well mark a far broader realization of information technology as a strategic asset for higher education.

 

On a separate note…while obtaining and reviewing data / analytics certainly helps, often that isn’t enough.

Steve Jobs didn’t acquire data or do focus groups before introducing the Macintosh, nor before introducing the iPod, nor before introducing the iPad, nor before introducing the iPhone. But these devices literally changed the world.

Solid vision and innovation are what really count — they bring about the real game-changers.

 

 

 

Google launches enterprise-grade G Suite for Education — from venturebeat.com by Blair Hanley Frank

Excerpt:

Google announced today that universities and other large educational institutions will have a new version of its G Suite productivity service tailored just for them. Called G Suite Enterprise for Education, the service will first be a roughly straight port of the tech giant’s offering for large businesses, but will later receive features that are tailored specifically for schools.

With the new offering, organizations will get features like the ability to hold video calls in Hangouts Meet with up to 50 participants, a security center for managing potential threats, and advanced mobile device management.

Google’s cloud productivity suite is already popular among schools large and small. This offering will likely make it even more appealing to IT administrators at the largest organizations, who need more advanced features.

 

 

“Rise of the machines” — from January 2018 edition of InAVate magazine
AI is generating lots of buzz in other verticals, but what can AV learn from those? Tim Kridel reports.

 

 


From DSC:
Learning spaces are relevant as well in the discussion of AI and AV-related items.


 

Also in their January 2018 edition, see
an incredibly detailed project at the London Business School.

Excerpt:

A full-width frosted glass panel sits on the desk surface, above it fixed in the ceiling is a Wolfvision VZ-C12 visualiser. This means the teaching staff can write on the (wipeclean) surface and the text appears directly on two 94-in screens behind them, using Christie short-throw laser 4,000 lumens projectors. When the lecturer is finished or has filled up the screen with text, the image can be saved on the intranet or via USB. Simply wipe with a cloth and start again. Not only is the technology inventive, but it allows the teaching staff to remain in face-to-face contact with the students at all times, instead of students having to stare at the back of the lecturer’s head whilst they write.

 


 

Also relevant, see:

 


 

 

7 Things You Should Know About Video Walls — from library.educause.edu /

Excerpt:

What is it?
A video wall is a large-scale ultra-resolution digital display that joins multiple display screens with minimal bezels to create what is essentially one large screen. While the multiple monitors can be tiled to display one large image, the technology also lends itself well to viewing multiple sources at one time. Video walls are linked via software to a computer or other media source. Video walls typically are arrayed as flat-screen planar displays; sometimes the walls are curved. Found in public spaces like stadiums and airports, video walls are increasingly used in higher education as tools for pedagogy and research. Sizes vary. One example consists of 24 HD displays tiled and connected to create a 50-million-pixel screen. Another example combines twelve 55-inch ultra-resolution LED screens. A video wall at Stanford University measures 16 x 9 feet while one at Georgia State University measures 24 feet wide.

What are the implications for teaching and learning?
Video walls help create a dynamic, interactive, hands-on educational environment that enhances research, encourages active learning, and bolsters collaboration between faculty and students. Used for visualization and modeling of large data sets, for example, this technology helps learners and researchers view in-put with different perspectives, helping them draw new conclusions and deeper analyses, and contributing to the development of new knowledge. Through that capacity, coupled with the immersive experience created by large-scale displays, video walls help learners bridge quantitative and qualitative methods, inter-disciplinary exploration, and diverse modes of inquiry to address complex questions across the arts and sciences.

 

 

 

 

Amazon Intros Alexa for Business — from campustechnology.com by Rhea Kelly

Excerpt:

Amazon Web Services today announced Alexa for Business, a new service that provides voice control for office tasks. The Alexa intelligent assistant can help start conference calls, control conference room equipment, schedule meetings, keep track of tasks, notify IT of an equipment issue or reorder supplies, the company noted in a news announcement. The service can also be customized to voice-enable an organization’s specific IT applications and office systems.

 

Also see:

 

Shared devices

 

 

EDUCAUSE 2017: Microsoft VP Praises the Power of Artificial Intelligence — from edtechmagazine.com
Artificial intelligence and connected systems advancements are creating a foundation where higher education can use insights and data to drive more efficient campus management, Microsoft’s Anthony Salcito explains.

 

 

 

Analysts and AI: A winning combination — from information-age.com
Artificial intelligence is crucial in helping analysts achieve more in day-to-day operations, and drive innovation

Excerpt:

A Capgemini and LinkedIn study of 1,000 companies with revenue of $500 million+ reported that 2 in 3 jobs being created as a result of AI were at management level, and of those that have implemented the technology at scale, 89% believe complex jobs will be made easier, and 88% say humans and machines will co-exist within their business.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Provosts, Pedagogy, and Digital Learning — from er.educause.edu by Kenneth Green, Charles Cook, Laura Niesen de Abruna and Patricia Rogers
Panel members from an EDUCAUSE 2017 Annual Conference session offer insights about the role of provosts and chief academic officers in digital courseware deployment and the challenges of using technology to advance teaching, learning, and student success.

Excerpt:

At the EDUCAUSE 2017 Annual Conference, Kenneth C. (Casey) Green moderated a panel discussion with two of the CAOs involved in the Association of Chief Academic Officers (ACAO) Digital Fellows Program and with the principal investigator on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation grant that created the year-long program. In this session, the three panel members offered their perspectives on campus IT investments, including what the panelists see as working—and what they see as missing—in instructional technology portfolios today.

 

 

Green: What about protection and support for faculty—especially young faculty? Often and disproportionately, younger faculty handle the heavy lifting for departments because, being younger, they’re supposed to “do the technology stuff.” Yet, when they do it—and I hear this at all types of institutions—they don’t get credit for the work in terms of review and promotion. The technology work doesn’t count, particularly at four-year colleges and research institutions.2 Young faculty are told: “Wait. Get tenured, get through the hurdle, get over the hump, then do it. Because this will not help your career—even if you’re being pressured to be the lead person on a digital learning initiative for your institution.”

 

 

Niesen de Abruna: …Now the CIO has to be a partner with the CAO. Their joint enterprise is to leverage learning in their community and to work together and translate things for one another, acting as partners in terms of trying to benefit from what’s happening in instructional design. It’s very exciting for CIOs and CAOs to have that sort of relationship.

 

 

Also see:

  • Insights from Campus Leaders on Current Challenges and Expectations of IT — from er.educause.edu by Kathryn Gates and Joan Cheverie
    IT’s role across a higher education institution is crucial, yet campus leaders typically understand IT challenges and opportunities based largely on their functional roles. Interviews with campus leaders offer insights into these views, as well as how to understand IT more broadly to better serve an institution’s mission.

 

 

 

AI: Embracing the promises and realities — from the Allegis Group

Excerpts:

What will that future be? When it comes to jobs, the tea leaves are indecipherable as analysts grapple with emerging technologies, new fields of work, and skills that have yet to be conceived. The only certainty is
that jobs will change. Consider the conflicting predictions put forth by the analyst community:

  • According to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, only 5-10% of labor would be displaced by intelligent automation, and new job creation will offset losses.  (Inserted comment from DSC: Hmmm. ONLY 5-10%!? What?! That’s huge! And don’t count on the majority of those people becoming experts in robotics, algorithms, big data, AI, etc.)
  • The World Economic Forum27 said in 2016 that 60% of children entering school today will work in jobs that do not yet exist.
  • 47% of all American job functions could be automated within 20 years, according to the Oxford Martin School on Economics in a 2013 report.
  • In 2016, a KPMG study estimated that 100 million global knowledge workers could be affected by robotic process automation by 2025.

Despite the conflicting views, most analysts agree on one thing: big change is coming. Venture Capitalist David Vandergrift has some words of advice: “Anyone not planning to retire in the next 20 years should be paying pretty close attention to what’s going on in the realm of AI. The supplanting (of jobs) will not happen overnight: the trend over the next couple of decades is going to be towards more and more automation.”30

While analysts may not agree on the timing of AI’s development in the economy, many companies are already seeing its impact on key areas of talent and business strategy. AI is replacing jobs, changing traditional roles, applying pressure on knowledge workers, creating new fields of work, and raising the demand for certain skills.

 

 

 

 

 

The emphasis on learning is a key change from previous decades and rounds of automation. Advanced AI is, or will soon be, capable of displacing a very wide range of labor, far beyond the repetitive, low-skill functions traditionally thought to be at risk from automation. In many cases, the pressure on knowledge workers has already begun.

 

 

 

 

Regardless of industry, however, AI is a real challenge to today’s way of thinking about work, value, and talent scarcity. AI will expand and eventually force many human knowledge workers to reinvent their roles to address issues that machines cannot process. At the same time, AI will create a new demand for skills to guide its growth and development. These emerging areas of expertise will likely be technical or knowledge-intensive fields. In the near term, the competition for workers in these areas may change how companies focus their talent strategies.

 

 

 

 

Plan now to attend the 2018 Next Generation Learning Spaces Conference — tour USC’s campus!

From DSC:
I am honored to be currently serving on the 2018 Advisory Council for the Next Generation Learning Spaces Conference with a great group of people. Missing — at least from my perspective — from the image below is Kristen Tadrous, Senior Program Director with the Corporate Learning Network. Kristen has done a great job these last few years planning and running this conference.

 

The Advisory Board for the 2018 Next Generation Learning Spaces Conference

NOTE:
The above graphic reflects a recent change for me. I am still an Adjunct Faculty Member
at Calvin College, but I am no longer a Senior Instructional Designer there.
My brand is centered around being an Instructional Technologist.

 

This national conference will be held in Los Angeles, CA on February 26-28, 2018. It is designed to help institutions of higher education develop highly-innovative cultures — something that’s needed in many institutions of traditional higher education right now.

I have attended the first 3 conferences and I moderated a panel at the most recent conference out in San Diego back in February/March of this year. I just want to say that this is a great conference and I encourage you to bring a group of people to it from your organization! I say a group of people because a group of 5 of us (from a variety of departments) went one year and the result of attending the NGLS Conference was a brand new Sandbox Classroom — an active-learning based, highly-collaborative learning space where faculty members can experiment with new pedagogies as well as with new technologies. The conference helped us discuss things as a diverse group, think out load, come up with some innovative ideas, and then build the momentum to move forward with some of those key ideas.

If you haven’t already attended this conference, I highly recommend that you check it out. You can obtain the agenda/brochure for the conference by providing some basic contact information here.

 

The 2018 Next Generational Learning Spaces Conference- to be held in Los Angeles on Feb 26-28, 2018

 

Tour the campus at UCLA

Per Kristen Tadrous, here’s why you want to check out USC:

  • A true leader in innovation: USC made it to the Top 20 of Reuter’s 100 Most Innovative Universities in 2017!
  • Detailed guided tour of leading spaces led by the Information Technology Services Learning Environments team
  • Benchmark your own learning environments by getting a ‘behind the scenes’ look at their state-of-the-art spaces
  • There are only 30 spots available for the site tour

 



 

Building Spaces to Inspire a Culture of Innovation — a core theme at the 4th Next Generation Learning Spaces summit, taking place this February 26-28 in Los Angeles. An invaluable opportunity to meet and hear from like-minded peers in higher education, and continue your path toward lifelong learning. #ngls2018 http://bit.ly/2yNkMLL

 



 

 

 

VR and AR: Transforming Learning and Scholarship in the Humanities and Social Sciences — from er.educause.edu b

What if a text or work of art is no longer read, but instead, experienced? What new questions are raised when it’s possible to visit an author’s home or stroll through the streets of an ancient city? How will our interpretations of literature, art, history and archaeology change when we are no longer passive recipients but co-constructors and actors in immersive experiences? How will this challenge us to think outside our current learning paradigms? These and other questions arise when we examine the impact of immersive technologies on the humanities and the social sciences.

 

Some examples mentioned there include:

 

 

 

Microsoft joins the VR battle with Windows Mixed Reality [on 10/17/17] — from theverge.com by Tom Warren

Excerpt:

Microsoft is launching its own answer to virtual reality today, taking on HTC and Oculus in the process. Windows Mixed Reality will be available in the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, and headsets are now available to buy. Here’s everything you need to know about Windows Mixed Reality.

Microsoft is offering movement tracking (six degrees of freedom) without the need for traditional external sensors placed throughout a room. Windows Mixed Reality headsets have cameras and sensors to track the motion controllers.

Walmart looks to see if virtual shopping is better than the real thing — from washingtonpost.com by Abha Bhattarai

Excerpts:

…Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, is setting its sights on virtual reality.  Imagine this, says Katie Finnegan, who heads Walmart’s tech incubator: You need a tent for your next camping trip. If all goes to plan, you could one day virtually swoop in to your campsite and see any given tent in action. “You could unzip it, lay down, look left and right and say, ‘Oh, this is supposed to be a two-person tent? It’s kind of tight,’ ” she said. And then you could move on to the next tent — without leaving your couch.

Here are the five ideas the Bentonville, Ark.-based company says could be making their way online:

  1. 3-D holograms at Bonobos.com, the male clothing site Walmart acquired this year for $310 million, that would make it possible for shoppers to try on virtual clothing for fit and style.
  2. At ModCloth, the women’s clothing site Walmart took over in March, customers may one day be able to take 3-D photos of themselves using their smartphones, and use those images to get an idea of how something might look on.
  3. An “interactive virtual store” for designer Rebecca Minkoff, whose items are sold at Walmart.com, would allow customers to sit in on fashion shows and shop directly from the runway.
  4. Tired of shopping online alone? If Walmart gets its way, you may soon be interacting with other shoppers and experts as you pick out items for your virtual cart.
  5. Electric outlets, stove tops and door handles can all be child safety hazards — and soon, an online tool could peek inside your home and tell you where the biggest risks are lurking.

 

 

 

Explore the surface of Mars from the comfort of your living room — from haptical.com
Google’s new project allows viewers to explore the discoveries of NASA’s Curiosity rover.

Excerpt:

NASA and Google have teamed up to build a new virtual experience that lets space enthusiasts explore the red planet without having to leave their homes. Dubbed as “Access Mars”, the new project virtually transports users, wherever they are, to Earth’s neighboring planet in the solar system.

 

 

 

 

 

Chinese School Opens Full-Function VR Classrooms — from vrfocus.com by Rebecca Hills-Duty
HTC Vive have created a system which allows 50 VR units to work together with no cross-interference.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2017 Campus Technology Impact Awards
The inaugural recipients of the CT Impact Awards are using tech to improve teaching and learning, streamline operations, build community and more.

 

 

 
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