TL Infobits - June 2008
Issue 24
ISSN: 1931-3144
Ten Higher Education IT Issues for 2008
Ten Reasons to Adopt IT Innovations
Ten Web Technologies to Watch
The Myth of Multitasking
Papers from a Distance Learning Administration Conference
Games and Learning Resources
Recommended Reading
TEN HIGHER EDUCATION IT ISSUES FOR 2008
The EDUCAUSE Current Issues Committee has released the results of its ninth annual survey of information technology (IT) issues that concern higher education. The survey looks at IT in four areas: "(1) issues that are critical for strategic success; (2) issues that are expected to increase in significance; (3) issues that demand the greatest amount of the campus IT leader's time; and (4) issues that require the largest expenditures of human and fiscal resources." As for the previous five years, administrative/ERP information systems, funding IT, and security rank at the top of the list of college and university CIOs' concerns. This year, security is the number one concern, reflecting the number of data privacy breaches and threats some institutions have experienced.
The survey results and related materials, including readings related to each of the ten issues, are available at http://www.educause.edu/2008IssuesResources/15516.
EDUCAUSE is a nonprofit association whose mission is to advance higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology. The current membership comprises more than 1,900 colleges, universities, and educational organizations, including 200 corporations, with 15,000 active members. EDUCAUSE has offices in Boulder, CO, and Washington, DC. Learn more about EDUCAUSE at http://www.educause.edu/.
TEN REASONS TO ADOPT IT INNOVATIONS
"College and university educators in general and . . . IT educators in particular have a unique set of personal values, motivators, organizational politics, and alliances that influence technology adoption decisions. Given the nature of their chosen field, most IT educators place value on creativity and learning. They have a wide range of external motivators but many are also self-motivators and risk-takers. But they also must function within the framework of their institution's philosophies, resources, and organizational, social, and political structure."
While the some of the reasons listed in "Ten Reasons for IT Educators to be Early Adopters of IT Innovations" (by Sharlett Gillard, Denice Bailey, and Ernest Nolan, Journal of Information Technology Education, vol. 7, 2008) sound humorous, the authors nevertheless take a serious approach to the question, "Why be an innovator or early adopter?" Some of the reasons include:
The sun came up today.
"There is probably nothing more predictable in the physical world in which we live than the sun rising and setting. In the professional world of information technology there is probably nothing more predictable than change itself. . . . The pace may be exhausting, and fighting a current may sometimes be necessary, but as a general, relatively predictable practice, just as the sun came up today, we should welcome change, embrace it, learn to manage it, and be among the first to integrate it into our professional world."
You read the obituaries and your name was not listed.
"A failure to adopt all innovations over an extended period of time . . . could be perceived as resisting rather than discerning or discriminating and lead to professional death."
If you can't run with the big dogs, stay on the porch.
"In this 'dog eat dog' world, it is all about being out front: leadership. If you are not the lead dog, the view never changes and that alone is a very unpleasant thought. Reflecting on professional contacts, discussions, and feedback from conference sessions, it is the consensus of the authors that regardless of where we actually fit in the product adoption curve, most IT educators seemingly like to believe that they are relatively up-to-date in the use and application of information technology."
The complete paper is available at http://jite.org/documents/Vol7/JITEv7p021-033Gillard257.pdf.
The peer-reviewed Journal of Information Technology Education (JITE) [ISSN 1539-3585 (online) 1547-9714 (print)] is printed annually in a single volume, but articles are published online when accepted (at http://jite.org/). The journal is published by the Informing Science Institute. For more information contact: Informing Science Institute, 131 Brookhill Court, Santa Rosa, California 95409 USA; tel: 707-531-4925; fax: 480-247-5724; Web: http://informingscience.org/.
TEN WEB TECHNOLOGIES TO WATCH
"Ten Web Startups to Watch" (Technology Review, July/August 2008) provides a quick glimpse of the future of Web applications by focusing on at ten new companies and what they are marketing. Their services/tools are in the areas of voice messaging, microblogging, live broadcasting from phones, memory aids, and delivering streaming media. The article is online at http://www.technologyreview.com/Biztech/20923/.
Technology Review [ISSN 1099-274X] is published six times a year by Technology Review, Inc., a Massachusetts Institute of Technology enterprise. For more information, contact Technology Review, One Main Street, 7th Floor, Cambridge, MA 02142 USA; tel: 617-475-8000; fax: 617-475-8042; Web: http://www.technologyreview.com/.
THE MYTH OF MULTITASKING
"When we talk about multitasking, we are really talking about attention: the art of paying attention, the ability to shift our attention, and, more broadly, to exercise judgment about what objects are worthy of our attention. People who have achieved great things often credit for their success a finely honed skill for paying attention."
In her essay "The Myth of Multitasking" (The New Atlantis, no. 20, Spring 2008, pp. 105-10), Christine Rosen cites studies that provide evidence that multitasking may be influencing the way our brains work and the way we learn. But it may not be a good thing, resulting in people who exhibit "very quick but very shallow thinking." Read all the viewpoints at http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-myth-of-multitasking.
The New Atlantis: A Journal of Technology & Society [ISSN 1555-5569 (online), ISSN 1543-1215 (print)] is available online at http://www.thenewatlantis.com/ The Journal is published quarterly by The Ethics and Public Policy Center, 1015 15th St. NW, Suite 900, Washington, DC 20005 USA; tel: 202-682-1200; fax: 202-408-0632; email: ethics@eppc.org, Web: http://www.eppc.org/.
PAPERS FROM A DISTANCE LEARNING ADMINISTRATION CONFERENCE
The current issue of Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration (vol. 11, no. 2, Summer 2008) features papers from the Distance Learning Administration June 2008 conference. The issue is available at http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/.
Papers include:
"A Strategic Planning Process Model for Distance Education" by Kenneth P. Pisel
"As more institutions seek to implement or expand distance learning programs, it becomes critical to integrate distance learning programs into broader strategic visions and plans. Using the informed opinion from a panel of peer-nominated experts via iterative Delphi questionnaires, a 10-phased strategic planning process model for distance education was developed."
"It Takes a Virtual Community: Promoting Collaboration Through Student Activities" by Ludmila Battista, Carol Forrey, and Carolyn Stevenson
"This paper [discusses] strategies for developing a sense of student community at a distance. Topics include: the role of professional and student organizations in building community; academic coaching and courses for at-risk students; community building through student websites; use of Second Life for promoting student leadership and collaborative activities."
"Instructor's Privacy in Distance (Online) Teaching: Where Do You Draw the Line?" by Valerie Storey and Mary Tebes
"As the number of online classes continues to grow, an increasing number of articles are being written about student and program integrity but there is a notable absence of articles or research focusing on the emerging issue of institutional integrity in relation to instructors. The ideology of New DEEL's (Democratic Ethical Educational Leadership) speaks to the ethical basis of online teaching and this paper delineates an authentic ethical dilemma for which a universalized and generalized ethical model is proposed to be usefully applied to all issues involving privacy of participants."
The Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration is a free, peer-reviewed quarterly electronic journal published by the Distance and Distributed Education Center, The State University of West Georgia, 1603 Maple Street, Carrollton, GA 30118 USA; email: distance@westga.edu; Web: http://www.westga.edu/~distance/.
GAMES AND LEARNING RESOURCES
The UNC-Chapel Hill Information Technology Service's Teaching and Learning division has recently added new resources to our Games4Learning initiative website. Scholars interested in how games can be used in the curriculum can find links to websites, listservs, organizations, and readings at http://learnit.unc.edu/games4learning/resources.php.
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 kotlas@email.unc.edu for possible inclusion in this column.
"Is Google Making Us Stupid?"
By Nicholas Carr
Atlantic Monthly, July/August 2008
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google
"For me, as for others, the Net is becoming a universal medium, the conduit for most of the information that flows through my eyes and ears and into my mind. The advantages of having immediate access to such an incredibly rich store of information are many, and they've been widely described and duly applauded. 'The perfect recall of silicon memory,' WIRED's Clive Thompson has written, 'can be an enormous boon to thinking.' But that boon comes at a price. As the media theorist Marshall McLuhan pointed out in the 1960s, media are not just passive channels of information. They supply the stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought. And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski."
