I’m working my way through the latest Educause Quarterly. With a cover on e-learning, how could I pass it up?
First, there’s “Laptop Use in University Common Spaces.” At first I thought cynically, “oh, a survey to see if students are using laptops — they are!” But once I read it I saw they were interested in how students are using their laptops in these spaces. Of most interest was the need for power and secure storage. It’s amazing how many leave them unattended. The need for power is easy to miss — batteries don’t run forever!
Next is “E-Learning—A Financial and Strategic Perspective.” This well-researched article does a good job of hitting the key aspects of e-learning that impact the bottom line: use of adjuncts and overhead costs. It also hits on the concerns of faculty about the use of adjuncts, course development, and quality.
Following that thread is “Uniting Technology and Pedagogy: The Evolution of an Online Teaching Certification Course.” This article explains a model of certifying faculty to teach online using an online course — the faculty get to be online students. I think it provides a good framework for fulfilling this need — assuming you are able to invest in making the course as good as it needs to be. There are some good examples of the challenges the faculty faced when they were in the role of online student.
And lastly, “Professional Development for IT Leaders” gave me some things to think about along with “CIO Effectiveness in Higher Education.” Of course the former takes place in a large university with many different IT opportunities. But it makes me think what do I want to do? where do I want to go? do I want to move more into management and more distant from the end-users like faculty? Those questions won’t be answered today…..
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