College CIO: Embrace virtualization, but not too much

Virtualization can sometimes cause IT headaches, Herleman says.
Virtualization can sometimes cause IT headaches, Herleman says.

Using one computer to power many has saved money as school budgets have been slashed, but too much of this good thing can lead to “virtualization sprawl”—an emerging problem that one campus IT leader is determined to avoid.

Karl Herleman, CIO at Miami Dade College (MDC), has, like many technology decision makers, moved his eight-campus school toward virtualization in the past three years. This means one computer in a campus computer lab can power several machines, reducing the IT department’s costs and saving the college on its monthly energy bills.

MDC has trimmed its energy consumption by 10 percent since 2008, thanks largely to virtualization, Herleman said.…Read More

College IT officials: Show us the money … please

Funding topped the list of IT officials' concerns as college budgets stagnate.
Funding topped the list of IT officials' concerns as college budgets stagnate.

Technology funding in higher education will remain flat or decrease for the “foreseeable future,” according to an annual education technology report released June 10, as campus IT officials said funding was their top concern over the past year.

The survey of 424 campus technology decision makers showed that administrative systems, computer security, teaching and learning with technology, identity and access management, and disaster recovery also were among the top 10 most pressing issues in campus IT.

EDUCAUSE, a higher-education technology advocacy group, conducted the survey, which was sent to nearly 2,000 college IT officials. The survey had a 22-percent response rate, according to EDUCAUSE.…Read More

Texas college teams up with digital signage industry

Digital signage has become commonplace at schools, gas stations, and shopping malls, experts say.
Digital signage has become commonplace at schools, shopping malls, and many other locations.

Students enrolled in Texas State Technical College’s Digital Signage Technology program will be able to network with digital signage professionals and stay up to date with the latest in interactive technology after the school became the nation’s first college chapter of the Digital Signage Federation (DSF), a nonprofit trade organization.

The DSF announced the industry’s first college partner May 17, and TSTC officials said the partnership would give its students access to industry news and trends that could make them more marketable when they finish the signage associate degree program and enter the workforce.

There are three students in TSTC’s digital signage program, which launched in the spring 2010 semester with about $1 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Education, said Patricia Golin, a program specialist at the college. Golin expects at least five more students to join the digital signage program next fall, and the school projects 20 signage students by fall 2011.…Read More

Ed-tech officials: Video will make schools more ‘efficient’

Retaining good students was the top priority for K-12 and college administrators.
Fifty-three percent of school officials said they would buy video technology in the next year.

More than half of education technology officials in K-12 schools and higher-education institutions said they would buy video technology in the next year to make their schools “more effective and efficient” and better prepare students for the workforce, according to a new survey from technology giant Cisco Systems.

The survey results, compiled by Washington, D.C.-based research and polling firm Clarus Research Group, come seven months after Cisco bought Tandberg, a leading video conferencing company. Observers expect Cisco’s purchase—which initially was snubbed by Tandberg stockholders, who balked at the $3 billion bid—to make the company one of the leading video providers in schools and colleges.

While 53 percent of administrators and school technology officials said their institutions “are likely” to buy video equipment sometime in the next year, more than eight in 10 survey respondents said technology plays a role in “improving how students learn,” with 82 percent agreeing that education technology will play a “large role” in “helping prepare students for the workforce of the future.”…Read More

Educators hope Ning stays affordable

Educators will have 10 weeks to decide if they want to keep their content on Ning after the company's May 4 shift to a fee-based model.
Educators will have 10 weeks to decide if they want to keep their content on Ning after the company's May 4 shift to a fee-based model.

Since Ning launched its social network that lets members create groups on any topic back in 2007, thousands of educators have used the online tool to connect with their peers across the globe. Now, the company says it soon will “phase out” its free service, forcing educators to find other alternatives or pay to keep their Ning networks intact.

Education technology experts said Ning risks alienating educators with its decision, especially at a time when school budgets are so tight. Ning, which had planned to use advertising revenue to support the site, announced April 16 that company officials would unveil a new business model on May 4 that would include “price points” for the previously free service.

While Ning’s basic service had been free, it also offered a range of paid options, including $5 a month for custom domains and $10 a month for extra bandwidth and storage capabilities.…Read More

Virtual Symposium examines worldwide growth of online access

The Virtual Symposium focused on keeping open-source technologies free.
The Virtual Symposium focused on keeping open-source technologies free.

Online learning, open courseware, eBooks, wikis, and many other innovative technologies have forever affected education by connecting any topic in any discipline to any learner in any place. Even individuals in remote communities now can access unlimited information free of charge, if they have an internet connection. This also provides more possibilities for international collaboration, knowledge building, and sharing of best practices.

Drexel University’s School of Education capitalized on these possibilities during its second annual live and online Virtual Symposium, in conjunction with Wainhouse Research and the World Bank Institute’s Global Development Learning Network (GDLN). This year’s Virtual Symposium built upon the theme Education for Everyone: Expanding Access Through Technology.

The symposium highlighted education technology innovations, and it examined challenges to access—for example, among poor and rural communities—and possibilities for overcoming them. A major feature of the symposium was the ability for participants to share experiences among peers in both developing and developed countries.…Read More

Data analysis tool offered to colleges free of charge

Having SAS's analytics software on the web has changed the way faculty teach their courses.
Having SAS's analytics software on the web has changed the way faculty teach their courses.

Faculty and students on 200 campuses nationwide will have free access to advanced data management and analytics software via cloud computing beginning in the fall 2010 semester, after business software company SAS last week opened its OnDemand for Academics program to more higher-education customers at no charge.

The web-hosted analytics software has gained traction in higher education in recent years, and education technology experts said the free offer could expand the software’s presence at colleges where IT departments have seen deep cuts during the country’s economic downturn.

The OnDemand for Academics tool would join a growing list of campus technologies hosted on the internet—a strategy known as cloud computing—which allows access to the most up-to-date programs without using costly on-campus servers. This means students can access the online tool from anywhere they have an internet connection and won’t be forced to buy the software for their laptops or make a trip to the school computer lab to use the SAS analytics program, saving money for the university and time for IT staff—many of whom have a larger workload after budget cuts have trimmed staff numbers in recent years.…Read More

Community colleges turn to online classes as enrollments spike

Distance learning enrollment continues to outpace overall college enrollment numbers.
Distance-learning enrollment continues to grow faster than overall college enrollment numbers.

Distance-learning enrollment in American community colleges jumped by 22 percent during the 2008-09 academic year, an increase fueled in part by an influx of nontraditional students who require the flexibility of online courses, according to a survey conducted by the Instructional Technology Council (ITC).

The ITC, which is affiliated with the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC), collected 226 responses from community colleges in its annual survey, “Trends in eLearning: Tracking the Impact of eLearning at Community Colleges,” which revealed the 2008-09 increase in online enrollment. Last year’s ITC survey reported an 11-percent uptick in web-based class enrollment at community colleges.

The survey also highlighted the closing gap in course completion rates among online learners, which traditionally has lagged behind that of traditional face-to-face students. Seventy-two percent of web-based community college students completed their class last year, compared with 76 percent of on-campus students.…Read More

Class in 140 characters or less?

Fourteen percent of college faculty said they saw educational value in social media like Facebook.
Only 14 percent of college faculty said they saw educational value in social media such as Facebook.

There are more than 20 million college students in America, and more than 50 percent will not graduate. The No, 1 reason contributing to student dropout rates is a lack of engagement. The billion-dollar question for our education system is: How do we motivate and stimulate students to take a more proactive role in their academic success?

An obvious starting point might be the environments in which we know today’s students are currently engaged, all day, every day—social networks. To date, a significant chasm has existed between students’ interactive, stimulating experiences with social media and the reality of their “low-tech” classrooms.

Of course, there are exceptions, but on the whole, the nation’s higher-education system isn’t yet capitalizing on the social networking and Web 2.0 tools that keep today’s digital natives motivated. It’s time to unleash that potential.…Read More

Blackboard unveils system for disbursing student aid

Students will be able to use Blackboard Pay cards to withdraw from ATMs.
Students will be able to use Blackboard Pay cards to withdraw from ATMs.

Some college students will be able to use their allotted financial aid by swiping a debit card instead of waiting for paper checks to come to their dorm rooms or houses after Blackboard Inc. this week launched a student payroll system.

Officials from Blackboard, the largest provider of learning management systems (LMS) software in K-12 schools and colleges, said the Blackboard Pay program would not charge overdraft fees or other penalties common among banks and other companies that issue debit cards.

Blackboard is teaming up with First Data and Discover to distribute the cards, which students will use to spend the per-semester or annual aid they are granted through federal or private loans. Student card holders will be able to use the Blackboard Pay cards to get cash from ATMs with the Pulse, Allpoint, or STAR Network logos, among other companies.…Read More

Botnets continue to threaten campus networks

A network of more than 70,000 botnets were recently discovered in government and business computers.
A recently discovered botnet of more than 70,000 machines included many government and business computers.

Web security experts say campus IT officials should stop using students’ Social Security numbers as identifications, because about 5,900 known botnets have stolen valuable information from computers in many sectors, including higher education.

Shadowserver, an organization that tracks botnet incidents in governments, education, and the private sector, unveiled the running tally of botnets days before security firm Symantec released a report March 2 showing a 5.5 percent hike in spam eMail last month, spurred mostly by botnets. Spam now accounts for 90 percent of all eMail sent within the U.S., Symantec said.

A single botnet, called Grum, is responsible for 26 percent of worldwide spam, according to the Symantec report. The harmful spam messages were mostly disguised as pharmaceutical eMails.…Read More

Can social media cure low student engagement?

Students can access an array of education applications of Facebook Courses.
Students can access an array of education applications from Facebook Courses.

Keeping college students and their professors connected through social media outlets could be key in boosting graduation rates, education technology experts said during a panel discussion at Social Media Week in New York.

Social Media Week ran through the first week of February in five cities worldwide—New York City, San Francisco, London, Sao Paulo, and Toronto—and authorities from the business world, academia, and other fields discussed how social media sites like Twitter and Facebook are shaping global culture.

During a Feb. 6 session called “The Future of Social Media in Higher Education,” a five-person panel explored how colleges can use social networking to communicate with traditional and nontraditional students, what impact the new Apple iPad might have on student-faculty communication, and why Blackboard is not meeting some students’ social media needs.…Read More