Top-Ten IT Issues, 2009
Anne Scrivener Agee, Catherine Yang, and the 2009 EDUCAUSE Current Issues Committee

This article lists the following as the top ten IT issues in 2009: Funding IT; Administrative/ERP Information Systems; Security; Infrastructure/Cyberinfrastructure; Teaching and Learning with Technology; Identity/Access Management; Governance, Organization, and Leadership; Disaster Recovery / Business Continuity; Agility, Adaptability, and Responsiveness; and Learning Management Systems. Out of those, #5 and #10 are related to learning technologies:

Issue #5: Teaching and Learning with Technology
Teaching and Learning with Technology — formerly E-Learning / Distributed Teaching and Learning — ranked #5 this year, moving up from #9 in the 2008 survey. With the increasing availability of technology-based learning tools both internal and external to the institution, the role of the CIO and other IT leaders is expanding to encompass many teaching and learning domains. The trend toward augmenting instruction with technology creates opportunities and substantial challenges for those who must respond to increasingly diverse and fluid instructional environments. CIOs have become crucial to instructional units because they provide leadership in evaluating and supporting the teaching technologies that underlie multiple forms of distributed learning.

A growing proportion of learning takes place outside the traditional boundaries of the classroom, facilitated by applications such as social networks and technologies that support a culture in which everyone creates and shares. In the current economic environment, IT leaders must make decisions about whether or not to accommodate these miscellaneous technologies. Further, they are being asked to provide technological direction for cultural transformations — such as information fluency — that involve library faculty, department faculty, technology specialists, and students as co-creators of knowledge. Finding the proper balance between systemic and ad hoc technologies will be fundamental for IT leaders as they respond to a student generation that prefers less passive and more agile learning. These instructional modalities will foster transformational innovations such as the need for e-portfolios in a reflective, contextual, authentic, and active learning environment.

All of these developments play out in a landscape where IT leaders bear responsibility for systems that support institutional functionality, that protect the privacy and security of faculty members, students, administrators, and staff, that safeguard information and intellectual property, that respond to the data and information needs of the institution, and that provide effective means of communication. This responsibility forces IT leaders to function in a mediated environment — one in which they must manage dwindling resources, increasing demands, and the necessity for a collaborative establishment of effective priorities with administrative and academic constituencies.

Critical questions for Teaching and Learning with Technology include the following:

• To what extent are IT leaders involved in active communities of practice, sharing ideas that facilitate consensus for information and instructional technology?
• What mechanisms are used to provide information about the effectiveness and possible reformulation of institutional technology? Are evaluation results shared on an institution-wide basis with opportunities for reflection?
• How are IT leaders taking an active role in informing key stakeholders about the necessary policy realignments caused by emerging technologies?
• What mechanisms are in place for faculty development? How are faculty members involved in the process?
• What system is in place to examine and reevaluate institutional structures for campus technology on a regular basis?

Issue #10: Learning Management Systems
The learning management system (LMS) has become a mission-critical enterprise system for higher education institutions. According to the EDUCAUSE Core Data Service: Fiscal Year 2007 Summary Report, 93 percent of all campuses responding to the survey supported at least one LMS. In fact, only 0.5 percent of respondents did not deploy and had no plans to deploy such a system.6 In Campus Computing 2008, Kenneth C. Green reports that the percentage of college/university courses that use an LMS has risen from 14.7 percent in 2000 to 53.5 percent in 2008.7 Accordingly, the LMS faces challenges and concerns similar to all other enterprise systems: acquisition strategy, local needs, rising costs, data migration, system integrity, integration/interoperability with other campus resources, and expansion to purposes for which it was not initially intended.

Although the commercial LMS providers (e.g., Blackboard/Angel Learning and Desire2Learn) dominate higher education, the percentage of campuses using open-source applications (e.g., Moodle and Sakai) has nearly doubled in the last two years.8 Given the rising cost of the commercial LMS, the current economic climate, and the pattern of consolidations in the commercial LMS market, the open-source LMS may be a viable alternative for some institutions. For those institutions with an already established LMS, however, the human and technical resources needed to migrate to a new system may be a concern.

Over the years, the LMS has evolved from a content (course) management system (CMS)9 to a more all-encompassing system that includes groupware and social networking tools, as well as assessment and e-portfolios to track learning across courses and semesters. Although the LMS needs to continue serving as an enterprise CMS, it also needs to be a student-centered application that gives students greater control over content and learning. Hence, there is continual pressure for the LMS to utilize and integrate with many of the Web 2.0 tools that students already use freely on the Internet and that they expect to find in this kind of system. Some educators even argue that the next requirement is a Personal Learning Environment (PLE) that interoperates with an LMS.10

At the same time, the question remains: is the LMS being used effectively at the institution, by both faculty and students? Institutions need to ensure that there are quality guidelines for the LMS, that both faculty and staff receive training,11 and that assessment is conducted regularly.

Critical questions for Learning Management Systems include the following:

• What factors at the institution favor buying a commercial LMS or supporting an open-source application?
• What systems need to be integrated with the LMS: portal? e-portfolio? ERP? library resources? Does the LMS support the integration of these systems?
• Does the institution have the development and support expertise either to support an open-source LMS or to integrate open-source components into a commercial LMS?
• Has the institution conducted, or is it planning to conduct, an assessment of how effectively the LMS is being used? What training/support resources are available to help faculty and students make better use of the LMS features?
• If a change will be made to a new system, what plan is in place to ensure the smooth migration of existing materials to the new system?

Link: http://www.educause.edu/EDUCAUSE+Review/EDUCAUSEReviewMagazineVolume44/TopTenITIssues2009/174191

Making Connections: Collaborative Approaches to Preparing Today’s and Tomorrow’s Teachers to Use Technology
Cheryl L Rosaen, Sharon Hobson, and Ghazala Khan

A collaborative approach was developed to support the professional development of teacher candidates, collaborating teachers (CTs) and teacher educators in learning to use technology for professional and pedagogical uses. Collaboration with K-5 teachers was undertaken to build the teachers’ capacities to use technology in meaningful ways in their classroom and school, with the intent to develop technology-rich sites for teacher candidates’ learning. A study of teacher candidates’ (n=24) and CTs’ (n=15) experiences during one school year indicated that both groups learned to use technology for a variety of pedagogical and professional uses, and teacher candidates had ample opportunities to work with technology. Moreover, teacher candidates shared their growing expertise with more experienced teachers by assisting their collaborating teachers with technology, a reversal of roles usually played in a mentoring situation. Nevertheless, the study also revealed that little collaboration and interactive dialogue about technology and its potential took place between 12 teacher candidates and CT pairs. Further steps are needed to create the culture of collaboration and reciprocity envisioned, where teacher candidates and CTs work together to use and appraise technology and to think critically about meaningful technology integration into the K-5 curriculum.

All technical progress has three kinds of effects: the desired, the foreseen, and the unforeseen. Ellul (1990, p. 61)

Today’s novice teachers face many challenges. They must learn to teach for understanding in ways that are consistent with high professional standards (National Board for Professional Teaching Standards [NBPTS], 1989; National Council of Teachers of English/International Reading Association [NCTE/IRA], 1996; National Council of Teachers of Mathematics [NCTM], 1991). They are also expected to understand and use technology in flexible, adaptive, and powerful ways to support their own and their students’ learning (International Society for Technology in Education [ISTE], 1999; National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education [NCATE], 1997). For teacher educators, tackling these pedagogical challenges is complex because there can be great variation in teacher candidates’ entering knowledge, skills, and dispositions in using technology (Laffey & Musser, 1998; Willis & Mehlinger, 1996). There is similar variation in technology knowledge and use between two groups responsible for supporting novice teachers’ learning: teacher educators, and the classroom teachers who work with teacher candidates in schools (Fox, Thompson, & Chang, 1996; Niederhauser & Stoddart, 1994; Willis & Mehlinger, 1996). When teacher preparation program technology requirements were adopted several years ago, our faculty decided to infuse work toward those requirements into existing courses, instead of offering a separate course, so that information technology could be linked with the substance of the program (Gillingham & Topper, 1999). The challenge was to embed meaningful uses of technology within course offerings and school-based field work such that teacher candidates would learn to use technology in support of their own professional learning and in support of the learning of K-8 students.

With support from the U. S. Department of Education’s program for Preparing Tomorrow’s Teachers to use Technology (PT3), a collaborative approach was developed to support the professional development of teacher candidates, collaborating teachers (K-5) and teacher educators in learning to use technology for professional and pedagogical uses. These efforts, undertaken in a senior-year course on methods of teaching literacy and math in Michigan State University’s Teacher Preparation Program,(FN1) were intended primarily to develop teacher candidates’ knowledge, skill and disposition to use technology both within their professional course work and in the K-5 schools where they spent four hours per week in their collaborating teacher’s (CT) classroom. Collaboration with K-5 teachers was undertaken to build the teachers’ capacities to use technology in meaningful ways in their classroom and school, with the intent to develop technology-rich sites for teacher candidates’ learning, and thus promote greater coherence between teacher candidates’ course and classroom experiences. Through these efforts to infuse technology into a teacher education course and model its uses in a variety of ways, new insights were gained into the power of technology as a professional and pedagogical tool.

This article begins with a discussion of the perspectives that guided the approaches taken to integrating technology. Next, the research questions and methods of inquiry are described. The third and fourth sections discuss teacher candidates’ and collaborating teachers’ learning. The fifth section discusses findings from analysis of the joint work of pairs of collaborating teachers and teacher candidates to understand the extent to which they worked collaboratively and reciprocally in learning to use technology. The concluding section discusses what was accomplished–the desired, foreseen and the unseen in these efforts–and next steps for working toward the desired goals.

Link: http://uwashington.worldcat.org/oclc/301582776

College 2.0: A Wired Way to Rate Professors—and to Connect Teachers
Jeffrey Young

The Blackboard administrator at the University of Maryland-Baltimore tracks usage and publishes a list of most-active instructors. That list helps technology-troubled professors connect with more experienced peers for help – “faculty learn best from other faculty,” he says. Other aspects of the report include giving people bragging rights, aiding in the measurement of teaching, and helping notice teachers who are interested in using technology. Read more at the link below…

Link: http://chronicle.com/free/2009/01/9311n.htm

Using Classroom Clickers To Engage Every Student
Linda Briggs

In this interview, a writer for the Campus Technology magazine interviews professor Edna Ross about how she uses clickers and what benefits they bring to her classroom. Edna points out, “With clickers, you’re giving every student a voice, even the introverts.” See the link below for the full interview!

Link: http://www.campustechnology.com/articles/67903/

In honor of Charles Darwin, the University of Cincinnati has undertaken a project to recreate the Galapagos Island in the virtual world of Second Life. For those who are unfamiliar, the Galapagos Islands is where Darwin conducted some of his research that led to the famous On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. When this project is finished, which is currently set at January 2009, all avatars in the virtual world will be able to retrace Darwin’s steps “from his 1832 journey to South America aboard the Beagle to his tours of the islands.” For more information about the University of Cincinnati’s Darwin Sesquicentennial Celebration program Evolution: Evidence and Impact, please see http://www.uc.edu/darwin/.

Link: http://www.educause.edu/library/erm08516

Professors Use Game-Show Format to Help Students Review for Exams
Jeffrey Young

Professors at various community colleges have found that using technologies and software that stimulates game shows in the classroom appears to improve student motivation and participation, given that there are proper incentives. Some of the technological tools being used are: electronic buzzers, Gameshow Prep, and the Angel course-management system.

Link: http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/article/3408/professors-use-game-show-format-to-help-students-review-for-exams

The Ubiquitous Learning Conference investigates the uses of technologies in learning, including devices with sophisticated computing and networking capacities which are now pervasively part of our everyday lives – from laptops to mobile phones, games, digital music players, personal digital assistants and cameras. The Conference explores the possibilities of new forms of learning using these devices not only in the classroom, but in a wider range places and times than was conventionally the case for education. Ubiquitous Learning is made possible in part by the affordances of the new, digital media. What’s new about it? What’s not-so-new? What are the main challenges of access to these new learning opportunities? These are the key themes and concerns of the Conference.

The UL Conference will be held at the University of Illinois’ Illini Centre, 17-19 November 2008, in Chicago, Illinois, USA. Visit its website (see the link below) for more information.

Link: http://q08.cgpublisher.com

Why Use Technology in Education?
Charles Thacker

Why students should be using technology in their education can be a complex issue, and there are many small points to be made here about the value of learning, understanding and using technology. It can be compared to science in general. Science is responsible for almost all of our advances around the world. It is difficult to think of any current tools, information and discoveries that are not the direct result of science. From the paint used in any art or commercial product to the increasing understanding of the origins of the cosmos and ourselves; science is at the root of it all. Similarly, technology is becoming the foundation upon which nearly everything is being built.

Link: http://www.macinstruct.com/node/7

Just call her Wikipedia wonk: UWB prof in spotlight for guiding students through online editing process
Peter Kelley / University Week

Maybe you’ve read about Martha Groom. An associate professor of Interdisciplinary Arts at UW Bothell, she won some media attention recently for involving her students with Wikipedia, the publicly edited online encyclopedia. Get to know this interesting teacher.

Link: http://uwnews.org/uweek/uweekarticle.asp?articleID=38236

Using Wikipedia to Reenvision the Term Paper
Martha Groom and Andreas Brockhaus

The structure of the traditional term paper can limit its educational value. To make the assignment more meaningful, students published their papers in Wikipedia. This session will examine how publishing for a large online community motivated students to do better work and deal with issues of voice, knowledge, and community.

Link: http://www.educause.edu/node/162770

Faculty Ideas about Technology: Wikis
Kimberly Arnold and David Eisert

Wikis are an increasingly popular trend sweeping through educational institutions around the world. Although they were originally viewed as another technological trend serving as a stopgap, wikis have firmly planted themselves among the most asked about emerging technologies. As Web 2.0 becomes more prevalent in today’s tech savvy culture, instructors in higher education are increasingly turning to wikis to provide collaborative environments for their students.

Link: http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~eisertd/FIT/FIT_Wiki_9-07.pdf