To support ed tech, schools need to rethink budgets, infrastructure

Faculty and IT staff ranked limited budget as the top barrier to more tech-based learning.

As schools seek to provide more interactive, engaging, and personalized learning, newly released survey results reveal they need to radically rethink their budgets and infrastructure to support this new learning model.

Two-thirds of students want to use technology more often in their classrooms, and 76 percent of IT staff said faculty members show increasing interest in implementing educational technology.

But 87 percent of IT professionals said they would need to upgrade their infrastructure before they can incorporate much more technology in their classrooms, and almost nine in 10 faculty members anticipate problems moving away from the traditional lecture model.…Read More

Students: Video lectures allow for more napping

More than half of students said streaming video lectures have improved their grades.
More than half of students said streaming video lectures have improved their grades.

College students gave video lectures high marks in a recent survey, although many students supported the technology because it freed up more time for napping and hanging out with friends.

And three in 10 said their parents would be “very upset” if they knew just how often their child missed class and relied on their course web site.

A majority of students who responded to the survey, conducted in August by audio, internet, and video conferencing provider InterCall, said they would only attend a live lecture if an exam were scheduled for that day, or to borrow notes from a classmate. The survey didn’t indicate the percentage of students who took this position.…Read More

IT officials: Only one in 10 campuses have ‘cutting edge’ technology

Fourteen percent of students said their professors simply 'won’t use' technology that is available to them.
Fourteen percent of students said their professors simply 'won’t use' technology that is available to them.

Most college students say their schools understand how to use education technology in the lecture hall, but only 9 percent of campus IT officials describe their institution’s technology adoption as “cutting edge,” according to a survey released July 19.

The survey of more than 1,000 IT staff members, faculty, and college students, conducted by CDW Government Inc. (CDW-G), shows that three out of four students surveyed approved of their college’s use of technology, while highlighting two findings that concerned some technologists: only a sliver of respondents defined their campus technology as “cutting edge,” and far more IT staffers push for education technology than do instructors.

According to CDW-G’s report, 47 percent of respondents said their college campus uses hardware that is “no more than three years old,” and 38 percent said their campus’s technology infrastructure is “adequate, but could be refreshed.” Only 9 percent said their education technology is “cutting edge,” and 5 percent described their computer systems as “aging.”…Read More

Study: Student access to classroom tech limited

Students said their top priority is having their own computing devices.
Students said their top priority is having their own computing devices.

Just 8 percent of high school teachers said that technology is fully integrated into the classroom; and the technology that is available is primarily used by teachers, and not students, according to the results of a national survey of more than 1,000 high school students, faculty, and IT staff members. As a result, 43 percent of students said they are not–or they are unsure if they are–prepared to use technology in higher education or the workforce. CDW-G conducted the 2010 21st Century Classroom Report to understand how students and faculty are using technology.

“A decade into this century, the door to 21st century skills remains locked for many students,” said Bob Kirby, vice president of K-12 education for CDW-G. “Today’s students need an interactive learning environment in which the technologies that they use outside of school are integrated into the curriculum. With that in mind, districts need to focus on providing a hands-on technology experience that translates to students’ futures, whether in higher education or the workforce.”

While high school IT professionals provide support for technology such as wireless internet access, student computing devices, interactive whiteboards, and even virtual learning, less than half of faculty members are designing lesson plans that enable students to use technology in class, and just 26 percent of students report they are encouraged to use technology throughout the school day.…Read More

Schools turn to unified communications to save costs, boost productivity

Schools are increasingly considering unified communications solutions.
Schools are increasingly considering unified communications solutions.

More K-12 schools, colleges, and universities are turning to unified communications as a way to streamline campus communication and save much-needed money in unpredictable economic times, a new survey suggests.

Unified communications is the convergence of enterprise voice, video, and data services with software applications designed to achieve greater collaboration among individuals or groups and improve business processes. Component technologies include video, audio, and web conferencing; unified messaging; and more.

The benefits that education technology stakeholders see in implementing unified communications are the same that executives in the government and business sectors see, according to the second annual Unified Communications Tracking Poll from CDW Government Inc. (CDW-G), which provides products and services to education and other sectors.…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