From DSC:

  • What if you want to allow some remote students to come on into your face-to-face classroom?
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  • What if you want to allow those remote students to be seen and communicated with at eye level?
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  • What if you want Remote Student A to join Group 1, and Remote Student B to join Group 2?
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Well…how about using one of these devices  in order to do so!


 

New video collaboration robot: TelePresence gets moving — from cisco.com by Dave Evans

Excerpt:

That is why Cisco’s new joint effort with iRobot—demonstrated publicly this week for the first time—is so exciting: We’ve created a mobile Cisco TelePresence unit that brings collaboration to you—or, conversely, brings you to wherever you need to collaborate. Called iRobot Ava 500, this high-definition video collaboration robot combines Cisco TelePresence with iRobot’s mobility and self-navigation capabilities, enabling freedom of movement and spontaneous interactions with people thousands of miles away.

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irobot-june-10-2013
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iRobot Ava™ 500 Video Collaboration Robot — published on Jun 10, 2013
iRobot and Cisco have teamed to bring the Ava 500 video collaboration robot to market. The robot blends iRobot’s autonomous navigation with Cisco’s TelePresence to enable people working off-site to participate in meetings and presentations where movement and location spontaneity are important. The new robot is also designed to enable mobile visual access to manufacturing facilities, laboratories, customer experience centers and other remote facilities.

 

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Double Robotics Double

http://www.doublerobotics.com/img/use-office.jpg

 

 

MantaroBot™ TeleMe

 

 

 

From Attack of the Telepresence Robots! — from BYTE  by Rick Lehrbaum

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Kubi

http://twimgs.com/informationweek/byte/reviews/2013-Jan/robotic-telepresence/kubi.jpg

 

 

MantaroBot “TeleMe” VGo Communications “VGo” Anybots “QB” Suitable Technologies “Beam”

 

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RP-7i ROBOT

RP-7i Remote Presence Robot

 

Also see:

 

Extending the boundaries of learning: A challenge for IT in Higher Education: A Q&A with Lev Gonick — from CampusTechnology.com by Mary Grush

Excerpts:

“In just one generation there has been the most radical transformation of access to learning ever in human history,” Lev Gonick points out.

But among the major developments that we can look back on at this point is a significant challenge to the traditional postsecondary education model–an entrenched model that has almost always been exclusively faculty centric. We, as the leaders of IT initiatives in higher education, have given rise to a conversation on our college campuses about the meaning of student centered learning and active learning. We are a significant part of that reframing–this is enormously important as we think about IT’s continuing role.

But we are now on the threshold of a very different set of institutional configurations and new learning experience opportunities, and ultimately we will see a reconfiguration of the meaning of learning as enabled by the IT world.

 

Top-Ten IT Issues, 2013: Welcome to the Connected Age — from educause review online by Susan Grajek

Also see:

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From DSC:
If we want organizations to survive/thrive in the future, we really need to drop the word “geek” from our vocabularies and get rid of the mental tapes and images that the word “geek” suggests.  It’s just not helpful.

 

 

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Ten things you should know about WebRTC — from cioinsight.com by Dennis McCafferty

Excerpt:

Don’t you think it would be great if you could engage with customers, employees, and partners accessing voice, video and data-sharing apps on a Web browser without any plug-ins? Thanks to developments with WebRTC technology, this is becoming a reality. To lend greater insight into this topic, Constellation Research Inc. has come out with a recent report, Ten Things CIOs Should Know about WebRTC. In it, author E. Brent Kelly reveals that WebRTC has the potential to take concepts pioneered by programs such as Skype to the next level. Ordinary Web developers will be able to, for example, use basic JavaScript application programming interfaces (APIs) to craft fully functioning voice, video and data-collaboration apps, or embed these capabilities with other apps with just a few lines of code. As a result, CIOs can lead their organizations to greater levels of employee productivity and customer engagement. “WebRTC may prove to be as disruptive to communications and collaboration as the World Wide Web was for information,” says Kelly, a vice president and principal analyst at Constellation.

Apple introduces “Learning in Action” resources

Apple introduces Learning in Action resources

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IT does not love iPads — from by Michelle Fredette
Students and faculty may love them, but IT personnel get a major headache when they try to integrate Apple tablets–and the company’s TV technology–in an enterprise setting.

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From DSC:
The Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) train has arrived.   As such, this is a huge issue and as you can tell from reading Michelle’s article, there is no silver bullet out there (at least not as of 5/9/13).  I sure wish all of the relevant vendors could get behind a secure, efficient, reliable standard here…or at least have Apple come up with something that would get past the multi-cast issues for wireless networks (i.e. what works great for the consumer at home doesn’t work well on a campus or throughout an enterprise). It also adds to the already difficult job we in IT have when the targets are constantly moving — and moving faster than ever.  Add to that the need to consider entire ecosystems/platforms these days.

 

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STEM cloud pilot could level technology playing field — from by Tanya Roscorla

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Because of differences in lower-income and higher-income schools in Maryland’s Prince George’s County, not every student has access to identical technology — and both government and education leaders are working to change that by partnering with the private sector on STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) and communication pilot in the cloud.

The county’s IT office and school system worked with the Maryland-based company Lockheed Martin to tackle this unequal access challenge creatively, something that the global security and aerospace company does for a living, said Vennard Wright, director of the Office of Information Technology and CIO for the county. This is the first step in the county’s quest to work with industry on different problems.

 

 

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The graphic below is from:
How strong is the business/IT relationship in your industry? — from Gartner.com by Mark P. McDonald; with thanks to Mr. Stephen Landry for putting this resource out on LinkedIn.

 

2013-Gartner-Executive-Programs-CIO-Survey---April-2013

 

 

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The IT conversation we should be having — from HBR.org by Jim Stikeleather

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

It is a conversation about the increasing importance of information technology and the role it must assume in every enterprise, regardless of size, industry or geography.

Our observations:

  • CEOs are demanding more visible value from their CIOs, in terms of generating revenue, gaining new customers, and increasing customer satisfaction.
  • Increasingly, the CIO and IT must be seen less as developing and deploying technology, and more as a source of innovation and transformation that delivers business value, leveraging technology instead of directly delivering it.
  • The CIO must be responsible and accountable if technology enables, facilitates or accelerates competition that the C-suite didn’t see coming, or allows the enterprise to miss opportunities because the C-suite did not understand the possibilities technology offered.
  • CIOs today must adapt or risk being marginalized.

 

From DSC:
This is critical in the higher ed space as well!

The majority of the higher education industry still isn’t getting it — we are operating in a brand new ball game where technology must be used strategically It’s not just about building and maintaining the infrastructure/plumbing anymore (though that is extremely important as well). It’s about the strategic, innovative use of IT that counts from here on out.

 

 

From DSC:
The worlds of K-12, higher education, and corporate training/development are all seeking solid solutions to the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) or the Bring Your Own Technology (BYOT) solution.  (The way I see it, it would sure be helpful it Apple worked with the other relevant vendors to establish better wireless networking protocols.)  Anyway, below are some items on this topic:


 

How to BYOT for Learning? – from shift2future.com by Brian Kuhn

Responding to the “Shift to the Future” — from seanrtech.blogspot.com by Sean Robinson

BYOD: 7 reasons to leave them to their own devices — from Donald Clark Plan B

Ten reasons the iPad is an awesome tool for classrooms and education — from isource.com with thanks to Krista Spahr, Senior Instructional Designer at Calvin College, for this resource

The 4 easiest ways to mirror the iPad (comparison chart) — from edudemic.com by Seth Hansen; working off of a similar posting from Tony Vincent 

Strategies for taking flight with BYOT  — from byotnetwork.com

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills identified 4 critical areas of learning for students that include creativity, critical thinking, communication and collaboration.  In Forsyth County Schools, we’ve been working hard with parents, teachers and students to embrace learning with student-owned technologies; something we call Bring Your Own Technology (BYOT).  What we know for sure is that BYOT is really more like Bring Your Own Learning because we’ve discovered that it is NOT about the technology – it IS about the learning.

 


From DSC:
This aligns well with Alan November’s replacing “one-to-one” with “one-to-world.”

But whether we use the acronomyns BYOD, BYOT or BYOL (or whatever), it’s all about students being able to contribute content (hopefully that they created) and participate in the discussions.

 

A piece of the Next Generation Smart Classroom -- Daniel Christian -- June 2012

From June 2012

 

Vision of a Next Gen Smart Classroom from March 2010

 From October 2009:
Building off of Steelcase’s media:scape product line

ToolsForTeamWork-CampusTechFeb2013

 

Addendum on 2/6/13:

 

 

How Can Data Mining & Analytics Enhance Education?

 

Infographic from Collegestats.org

 

From DSC:
With thanks to Mr. Muhammad Saleem for the resource. 

Also see:

A seat at the table at lastfrom campustechnology.com by Andrew Barbour
One result of the Year of the MOOC is that IT is finally getting a say in the strategic direction of the institution.

Excerpt:

It’s interesting that it took an external force to propel IT into this inner circle. I can’t recall how many stories CT has run proposing strategies for how CIOs could win a place at the table. At the end of the day, though, changing an institution as hidebound as the average college is not easily tackled from within. In contrast, there’s nothing like a little existential angst to shake things up.

But MOOCs aren’t the only drivers of this change. We often think of BYOD as stripping IT of control but–on the broader stage–it may be playing its own part in elevating IT’s profile on campus. For years, faculty resisted IT recommendations on how technology could improve teaching and learning. Saying no was easy–preserving the status quo always is. That’s changing now. BYOD is a force that faculty can’t resist. It is, after all, their customers bringing the devices to school. Suddenly, faculty are faced with demands for new styles of teaching that accommodate student preferences for technology and much more. Enter IT and a host of others who see the potential of tech in education.

Also relevant/see:

  • The University’s Dilemma– from strategy-business.com by Tim Laseter; with thanks to Ross Dawson for the recent tweet on this
The year ahead in IT, 2013 — from InsideHigherEd.com by Lev Gonick

Excerpt (emphasis by DSC):

The functional organization model makes it increasingly more difficult for IT on campus to be a meaningful partner and contributor to the strategic future of the University if and as it gets painted into the corner of being an expensive infrastructure cost center.

The alternative models to the functionally organized IT organization are many. The challenge for IT leaders is to cede a modicum of control and embrace the need to experiment in new, more porous, organizational models that facilitate and support the co-production of innovative solutions that meet the needs of higher education moving forward. Becoming a solutions-focused and internal consulting organization is at the core of what I take to be the opportunity for IT in higher education.

From DSC:

If other staff, faculty, students, and members of administration see everyone from the IT Department — and the IT Department as a whole — as only the folks who “install Microsoft Word and keep my PC running” — then we are in for some real trouble ahead. 

Endeavors originating out of — or significantly enabled by the IT department — have the potential to create massive new revenue streams. For example, this can be seen in  the growth of online learning these last few years and will most likely be true (at least in a significant part) for what MOOCs morph into.

Taking a cue from other industries that have gone to bat against the Internet, if you were the person in charge of picking members of the team that’s responsible for the future vision and strategies of your organization, who would you pick to be on your team?

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