EDUCATION
NEWS
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VIRTUAL UNIVERSITIES TO TRAIN
REAL DOCTORS
For
aspiring doctors, the first half of medical school is both hard and messy, as
they dissect human cadavers and practice giving physical exams to classmates.
But soon medical students may be able to study medicine for two years without
getting near a cadaver, or a fellow student. In what may be the most extreme
example of the trend toward Internet-based education, a worldwide group of
medical schools is collaborating to build an "International Virtual
Medical School," allowing students to begin work toward a medical degree
thousands of miles from a classroom.
http://www.iht.com/articles/104708.html
EDUCATORS TURN TO GAMES FOR
HELP
Video
games have come under tremendous political pressure in recent years because of
an increase in violent and sexual content. But schools soon may be using the
technology that powers those games to help teach America's children. Earlier
this year, Washington state Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson, a Democrat, tried to ban
the sale of violent games. While the courts continually have struck down these
types of initiatives, both state and national politicians continue looking for
ways to regulate the video-game industry.
http://www.wired.com/news/games/0,2101,59855,00.html
DESIGNING LEARNING OBJECTS
In
fact, the definition has been narrowed considerably in practice. The Sharable
Content Object Reference Model (SCORM), developed by Advanced Distributed
Learning to define learning object standards for the U.S. military, has become
a widely referenced standard. Numerous corporations and institutions require
SCORM compliant content, sometimes without knowing why.
http://www.learnscope.anta.gov.au/learnscope/golearn.asp?category=11&DocumentId=4077
EMBEDDING ONLINE INFORMATION
RESOURCES IN VIRTUAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS
A
short study of the use of online information resources by university lecturers
using Virtual Learning Environments as a teaching tool for the first time
provided insights into the strategies they use to select those resources, and
into some of the difficulties they encountered when using online materials in
their teaching. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews, and the
interview results were then taken to a group of subject librarians and library
managers for comment. Skills training emerged as a key issue for both teachers
and learners, and some interesting observations were made on the working
relationships of lecturing staff and librarians. The study concludes that the
need for 'new alliances' frequently raised in current literature is indeed very
apparent, but that to be most effective such co-operation may need to be at
individual as well as at group level.
http://informationr.net/ir/8-4/paper158.html
DISTANCE-EDUCATION COURSE
ENROLLMENT NEARLY DOUBLED, SAYS STUDY
A
distance-learning study, released late last week by the United States
Department of Education's National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES),
says enrollment in distance education courses has nearly doubled since 1995,
with more than half (56 percent) of the nation's two- and four-year
degree-granting institutions offering distance education courses in the
2000-2001 academic yea.
http://www.centerdigitaled.com/converge/?pg=magstory&id=61138
DIFFERENCES IN LEARNING
OUTCOMES FOR THE ONLINE AND F2F VERSIONS OF "AN INTRODUCTION TO
SHAKESPEARE"
The
same course in both an online and on-campus environment makes for an extended
experimental comparison of learning outcomes, while controlling for two
important variables: the instructor and the content of the course Students
learn course content through four kinds of encounters—alone, one-to-one, one-to-many,
and many-to-many. The online version of “Introduction to Shakespeare” course
has consistently better learning outcomes than the on-campus version, as a
result of the compelling nature of the one-to-one communication mode online and
the textual nature of the many-to-many and one-to-many modes online.
http://www.sloan-c.org/publications/jaln/v7n2/v7n2_koory.asp
RE-LEARNING E-LEARNING: A BOOZ
ALLEN HAMILTON REVIEW
Like
many of the e-revolutions, Internet-enabled e-Learning has fallen on hard
times. A Booz Allen Hamilton study [1] indicates that the problem lies not with
the concept but with the execution of e-Learning.
http://www.globaled.com/articles/FrenchMarlene2003.html
CLICK OR BRICK COLLEGES? AND
WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO THE SATURDAY EVENING POST?
The
question posed in this article is, Will traditional, residential education in
the 21st century be found only at a few elite institutions and be only for the
wealthy who can afford to attend them?
http://www.globaled.com/articles/BergeZane2003.html
TECHNOLOGY NEWS
================================================
COACHES GRAB HANDHELD COMPUTERS TO
TRACK STATS
Scorebooks are
changing. The pencil-and-paper system of tracking a game's activity is yielding
to technology, and baseball managers are now embracing handheld computers that
can hold an abundance of information. [Free registration required]
http://www.eschoolnews.org/news/showStory.cfm?ArticleID=4532
SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT SOFTWARE: AGENTS
GO MAINSTREAM
Researchers are
working on ways to add social intelligence to software, letting people interact
with computers in a less static way and allowing computers to respond to users'
emotions more effectively.
http://www.technewsworld.com/perl/story/31172.html
REPORT: 1 IN 10 TECH JOBS MAY GO
OVERSEAS
One out of 10 jobs
in the U.S. computer services and software industry could shift to lower-cost
emerging markets such as India or Russia by the end of 2004, a top computer
consultancy said.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/07/30/jobs.oversees.reut/index.html
DIGITAL CAMERAS GO DISPOSABLE
Buying a digital
camera doesn't have to be a big investment. Ritz Camera Centers unveiled a
single-use digital camera that will cost you only $11. The Dakota Digital
Single-Use Camera is available in select Ritz Camera and Wolf Camera retail
stores in 14 U.S. cities, including Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Philadelphia,
San Francisco, and Washington D.C.
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,111841,00.asp
IN DSPACE, IDEAS ARE FOREVER
The libraries at
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are earnestly bookish (2.6 million
volumes and 17,000 journals) but increasingly digital (275 databases and 3,800
electronic journals). And just as e-mail dealt a blow to snail mail, digital
archives are retooling scholarly exchange. A number of universities, from the
California Institute of Technology to M.I.T., are creating "institutional
repositories" designed to harness their own intellectual output. M.I.T.'s
archive, perhaps the most ambitious, is called DSpace (www.dspace.org).
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/03/edlife/03EDTECH.html
MICROSOFT REVEALS 'CRITICAL' FLAW
Microsoft issued
another passel of warnings about security holes, including a
"critical" flaw that affects most Windows PCs. The most serious of
the flaws involves DirectX, a library of graphics and multimedia programming
instructions used by most PC games, and could allow malicious users to run code
of their choice on a vulnerable PC.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105_2-5053428.html
GROUP POSTS PROGRAM THAT EXPLOITS
WINDOWS
A group in China
released a program Friday that lets hackers exploit a flaw in Microsoft
software and take over a victim's computer over the Internet. The program,
released nine days after Microsoft Corp. announced the flaw, has turned an
embarrassment for the company and inconvenience for customers into a
near-emergency. The program, posted on the group's Web site, takes advantage of
a vulnerability in nearly all versions of Microsoft's Windows operating system,
including Windows Server 2003, touted as Microsoft's safest ever.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,1203789,00.asp
EVERYTHING IS WATCHING YOU
We're well on our
way to a world where every product has a tiny radio transmitter embedded in it.
Privacy activists are not happy, but big corporations are licking their lips.
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2003/07/24/rfid/index_np.html
WHAT’S NEXT FOR DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY
This is an historic
year in the history of photography: the first time that North American sales of
digital cameras will exceed those of film models (not counting single-use
cameras). Much of the reason is that digital cameras are beginning to act more
like film cameras—but when it comes to the future of imaging we haven’t, to
coin a phrase, seen nothing yet.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/942457.asp
MACROMEDIA FLASH - THE BOTTOM LINE
Macromedia Flash
technology garnered a somewhat shaky reputation at the height of dot-com mania
in the 1990s, when it was often associated with Web site splash pages that
effectively served as brick walls barring users from accessing a site's useful
content. But Flash has grown up--or, more precisely, those who use this
now-ubiquitous technology have done so. Available on 98 percent of all
Internet-connected computers, Flash is now an important, easy-to-use
environment for creating interactive Web advertisements, educational CD-ROMs,
Sony PlayStation games and software demonstrations.
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/perl/story/31177.html
CRACKING WINDOWS PASSWORDS IN SECONDS
If your passwords
consist of letters and numbers, beware. Swiss researchers released a paper on
Tuesday outlining a way to speed the cracking of alphanumeric Windows
passwords, reducing the time to break such codes to an average of 13.6 seconds,
from 1 minute 41 seconds.
http://news.com.com/2100-1009_3-5053063.html
APPLE CUTS PRICES FOR STUDENTS, TEACHER
As part of its
efforts to stem a market share decline, Apple Computer is offering college
students and teachers larger discounts on new Macs--up to 15 percent more off
some models.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103_2-5052346.html
INTERNET/WIRELESS RELATED
================================================
NEW STUDY SHOWS KIDS WHO USE NET
GET BETTER GRADES, SCORES
Maybe the
Internet isn't so bad for kids after all. Results of a Michigan State
University study released Monday shows that low-income children who spend a
good deal of time on the Web do slightly better in school than children who
don't. The 16-month study included 140 school-age children. Those who spent
more than 30 minutes a day on the Internet saw their grade point averages
increase from 2.0 to 2.2 or higher and their scores in standardize reading
tests improve noticeably as well.
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0728netkids-ON.html
DIVERGING ESTIMATES OF THE COSTS
OF SPAM
When
Indiana University installed its new e-mail system in 2000, it spent $1.2
million on a network of nine computers to process mail for 115,000 students,
faculty members and researchers at its main campus here and at satellite
facilities throughout the state. It had expected the system to last at least
through 2004, but the volume of mail is growing so fast, the university will
need to buy more computers this year instead, at a cost of $300,000. Why?
Mainly, the rising volume of spam, which accounts for nearly 45 percent of the
three million e- mail messages the university receives each day.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/28/technology/28SPAM.html
P2P & VOIP: COMING TOGETHER?
Ever
since KaZaA, founder Niklas Zennstrom let it slip in a Boardwatch interview
that he was planning to launch a company offering voice services using
peer-to-peer (P2P) protocols, Light Reading and Boardwatch have been puzzling
over what he meant. As Zennstrom himself has clammed up, speculation is in
order. And our best guess is that he might be onto something REALLY BIG. Think
bigger than Google.
http://www.boardwatch.com/document.asp?doc_id=37854
TV, RADIO LOSING TEENS TO NET
According
to a recent report from Yahoo! and Carat North America, teenagers and young
people in the US spend the greatest amount of time, on average, each week with
the Internet (16.7 hours) compared to other forms of media.
http://www.emarketer.com/news/article.php?1002375#article
JULY SPAM CAPTURES EXCEED ALL OF
2002
Anybody
still unconvinced about the scale of the spam epidemic should consider this
fact: MessageLabs intercepted more spam in the last month than in the whole of
2002. While this is in part proof that filtering is more widely used, it is
also an indication as to just how much spam is being sent and received each
day.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105_2-5058168.html
ON SEARCH: METADATA
In the
Web's early years, the overwhelming favorite among search engines was Yahoo.
Today it's Google. Neither has actually had better text search technology than
the competition. They won because they used metadata effectively to make their
services more useful. In this ninth On Search episode, a survey of what
metadata is, where it comes from, and how to use it.
http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2003/07/29/SearchMeta
"DID YOU GET MY EMAIL?"
A recent
survey by TargetX, an email marketing firm, indicated that 13 percent of their
respondents said they’d take their business elsewhere if they don’t receive a
response to email within one hour. 15 percent said they were willing to wait up
to three hours. Eight percent said they would wait six hours. Almost everyone
(88 percent) expected a response within 24 hours.
http://www.wistechnology.com/troyemail.php
AMAZON PLAN WOULD ALLOW SEARCHING
TEXTS OF MANY BOOKS
Executives
at Amazon.com are negotiating with several of the largest book publishers about
an ambitious and expensive plan to assemble a searchable online archive with
the texts of tens of thousands of books of nonfiction, according to several
publishing executives involved. Amazon plans to limit how much of any given
book a user can read, and it is telling publishers that the plan will help sell
more books while better serving its own online customers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/21/technology/21AMAZ.html
LIBRARIES GET A BREAK ON NET
FILTERS
Libraries
have an extra year to comply with a controversial law that says if they accept
federal funds, they must install Internet filtering software.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105_2-5053614.html
YAHOO! TO BUY OVERTURE FOR $1.6
BILLION
Yahoo!,
one of the first subject directories on the Web and now a major search portal,
has announced it will purchase the commercial search company, Overture
Services, Inc., which specializes in Web advertising and operates the
AltaVista.com and AlltheWeb.com sites. The two companies have signed a
definitive agreement for a stock and cash deal worth $1.6 billion.
http://www.infotoday.com/newsbreaks/nb030721-1.shtml
================================================
[NOTE:
The selections above are from the Academic ADL Co-Lab News Report, a limited-distribution,
weekly executive summary of trends, strategies, and innovations influencing the
future of learning and technology in higher education. It is prepared by the
University of Wisconsin System Office of Learning and Information Technology (OLIT)
in coordination with the Co-Lab. Collegebuys.org/schoolbuys.org is using these
selections with permission. The selections from the weekly summaries were
selected and edited by David Stuart of collegebuys.org/schoolbuys.org.]
[NOTE:
This information is provided for information purposes only. Mention or
discussion of a product, company, or person does not represent any official
endorsement or criticism of the same. All authors and organizations retain
complete copyright.]
[SOURCE
MATERIAL: The reference as specific as possible is provided to a source for
each summary. When using an online link, ensure the URL has not been broken
with a carriage return.]
[ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Judy
Brown is the Emerging Technology Analyst for the University of Wisconsin System,
OLIT. Brown conducts research and consults for the 15-institution UW System.
She is Director of the Academic ADL Co-Laboratory at The Pyle Center in
Madison, WI. Until recently she coordinated the WTCS Hardware and Software
Purchasing Consortium and other statewide technology initiatives for 16
technical college districts comprised of 47 campuses. Brown was named one of
the Top 100 women in computing by McGraw Hill's Open Computing magazine
(December 1994). She writes a business technology column for the Milwaukee
Journal Sentinel and is the coordinator of eWEEK's Corporate Partner Program.]
[COMMENTS &
CONTRIBUTIONS: If you want to offer material, or if you want to comment on the
contents, contact Judy Brown at
judy@academiccolab.org
