What would you list among the established technologies that colleges and universities should all be using broadly today to support or enhance teaching, learning, or creative expression?


  • Ubiquitous networks – not just wireless, but also high-speed networking, and especially highspeed networking to rural areas, via powerlines. Since the current broadband system isn't serving everyone, community networks are emerging. Should we encourage people to think of the Internet as a utility that is necessary for education, commerce, and a productive life? (Diana Oblinger) Might push this further ahead in time. New Pew study finds broadband adoption nearing a plateau, after barely 1/2 of Americans signed on (Bryan Alexander) One research effort at Dartmouth on wireless: Center for Mobil Computing (Malcolm Brown)
  • Grid computing and e-Science – the ability to easily move and share large data sets, and to put authentic data in thehands of students could be transformational. We are already seeing that happen with scientists. Why not extend it to learners? (Diana Oblinger)
  • RSS – Has done much to foster individual expression – but we are only beginning to tap it for learning (Diana Oblinger0
      • Also, syndication of more then text content (images, audio, video) and tech to mix feeds from multiple sources into something new (Alan Levine)
  • video production and sharing - this has become much easier, and is already exfoliating into numerous delivery mechanisms (DVD, vlogging, OurMedia) (Bryan Alexander)
  • audio production and sharing - see video preceding. Think of connections with other technologies, such as syndication (podcasting) and mobile devices (Bryan Alexander)
  • Torrent technology putting it to educational use? (Alan Levine) See also IP issues, below (Bryan Alexander)
  • net documents shared writing environments, documents that live on the network, not the desktop e.g. wikis or web apps like WriteBoard Writely, SyncroEdit (Alan Levine)
  • web applications web-based software see examples above under net documents plus ThinkFree or project plannig tools like Basecamp, BackPack (Alan Levine)
  • web standard content creation tools It's time to stop making content not up to modern web standards that can be used on multiple devices, address accessibility (Alan Levine) Does this include microcontent? (Bryan Alexander)
  • Narrowcasting e.g screencasting audio recording captured over screen action; to do more than just explain how to use software, but to deliver advanced concepts (Alan Levine) Along with podcasting and vodcasting, and now appcasting and no doubt other types of 'object' casting to come. (Nick Noakes)
  • folksonomic tools del.icio.us and Flickr - among others - are more than mature enough for use in academic environments. The possibilities for new ways of sharing, aggregating, and organizing information are endless. (Ruben Puentedura) e.g. Scuttle open source social bookmark tool... I am a fan of the technologies but not convinces these are anywhere near acceptance on campuses (Alan Levine)
  • Wikis like this (excellent) one for the Horizon Project (Jean Paul)
  • Multimedia Aggregators some examples are FireANT, DTV, iPodder, iPodderX (etc), Attensa (links into Firefox and IE and resides within Outlook) (Nick Noakes)
  • VOIP + API's - Internet phone + add-ins that could really impact on both informal and formal, peer-to-peer (P2P) learning. Skype, Gizmo, iChat, etc with tools that allow you to record audio and video and also to stream content to each other while connected via the VOIP tool. See ShowMacster for iChat as an example of this. Skype recently released their API so expect something similar to ShowMacster to be out and widely used before next Jan. (Nick Noakes) And other tools that promote/support interaction and collaboration within groups (including more than just student groups; i.e., faculty, staff, administration) (Sue Bauer)
  • Increased enterprise application integration – both intra-campus as well as inter-campus. As the enterprise-level tools aggregate (e.g., CMS, eportfolio, SIS, library, portal) they need to continue to be integrated and seamless to enable more all-digital learning engagements. These same tools need to be able to reach across institutions to enable content acquistion etc. (example: Twin Peaks) (Malcolm Brown) CMS use for courses, committees, communities of practice (Joeann Humbert) These tools also need to be "open" in at least two ways: they need to be open to accomodating connections and interactions with tools such as mentioned above (e.g., Skype, Flickr, Google's various projects), and they need to be open to importing and exporting content (vendor lock-in is no fun...) (Ruben Puentedura)
  • Smart ID cards - for vending, meals, etc (Joeann Humbert) and library, computer labs (Sue Bauer)
  • Self-serve hi speed print centers - for course packs, theses, in departments, dorms, eg., 200 pages free per day (Joeann Humbert) and computer labs (Sue Bauer)
  • Video Cams - for all faculty computers for conferencing, office hours (Joeann Humbert)
  • Course Management Systems and e-Portfolio Systems - such as WebCT, BlackBoard, ProfPort, home grown varieties (Sue Bauer)
  • Digital Archive Tools - Metacat (Sue Bauer)
  • Large Screen Video Display Technologies - collaboration begins around the camp fire. Today's camp fire is the large flat panel LCD/Plasma screen. Where there are installed, and the local surrounding made to support students working together, positive things happen. (Phli Long)
  • Blogging - it has certainly moved past the novelty technology to something more broadly supported; or substitute other technologies for student created expressions (eportfolios) that exist outside the bounds of class sites. (Alan Levine)
  • Personal Portable Devices - The Duke iPod experiment may not have marked a sea change in the delivery of instruction but it has shown the importance of using simple, well designed devices and software interfaces to them (iTunes) as search, retrieval and display/play tools that apply to all digital content. What will Apple announce on 10/12? [Apple Announcement|http://www.macnn.com/articles/05/10/04/apple.special.media.event/
    ] (Malcolm Brown) New rumors claim it's a video iPod (Malcolm Brown)
  • XHTML - remix/restructure content for teaching and ... - Simple dynamic HTML scripts can take content from external sources and add to them, restructure their presentaiton or otherwise creatively remix them to add value otherwise missing. GreaseMonkey plugins to Firefox and some creative scripting mixed together and voila, GeoTagging is born. See Geoblogger (Phil Long)
  • Web Services- achieving the Web 2.0 dream of a wide variety of distinct applications for learning that to the user are relatively seemlessly woven together requires agreeing on the data structures and serving them up as web services. From the trivial but powerful (see Amazon Light 4.0 - note the is it in your library link - to the more comprehensive demoition of the current bloated CMSs to become modular sets of learning tools sewen together via webservices, this needs to happen now. (Phil Long)

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