EDUCATION NEWS
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EDUCATION ARCADE ZOOMS IN ON GAMES IN THE CLASSROOM
The Education Arcade, a new initiative involving MIT researchers, aims to transform the way video and computer games are used in the classroom. The Education Arcade is led by MIT's Comparative Media Studies program (CMS) and the University of Wisconsin's School of Education. It will develop and coordinate research by scholars, international game designers, publishers, educators and policymakers. "We want to lead change in the way the world learns through computer and video games. Our mission is to demonstrate the social, cultural and educational potentials of games by initiating new game development projects, and by informing public conversations about the broader and sometimes unexpected uses of this emerging art form in education," said Professor Henry Jenkins III, CMS director in MIT's School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences.
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/nr/2003/educade.html
 
TOP 10 INNOVATIVE PROJECTS
In past Top 10 issues, we've profiled emerging technologies and smart technologies. This year we take a look at how these technologies are being applied to implement new and more innovative approaches to learning. It's "technology in action", if you will.
http://www.techlearning.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=16000694
 
MAKING SENSE OF LEARNING SPECIFICATIONS & STANDARDS: A DECISION MAKER'S GUIDE TO THEIR ADOPTION
The area of learning standards is one of the most powerful and misunderstood aspects of the e-Learning revolution. As organizations make significant investments in digital learning content, they seek greater assurances of portability and reusability. Organizations also desire the ability to more easily store, search, index, deploy, assemble, and revise learning content. One goal of The MASIE Center's e-Learning CONSORTIUM is to lower industry confusion surrounding learning standards and to accelerate their adoption.
http://www.masie.com/masie/default.cfm?page=standards
 
THE KNOWLEDGE MEDIUM: DESIGNING EFFECTIVE COMPUTER-BASED LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS
Gary A. Berg, Ph.D., is author of Why Distance Learning? and over 20 articles on higher education. He is currently director of Extended Education and Distance Learning for California State University, Channel Islands. Dr. Berg has developed many distance learning format courses and programs, been interviewed for numerous national publications, and consulted for educational and government organizations on the use of distance learning. The Idea Group conducted an interview with him regarding the use of technology in education.
http://www.enterprisenetworksandservers.com/monthly/art.php/368
 
BERKLEE COLLEGE OF MUSIC LAUNCHES "BERKLEE SHARES" A GROUNDBREAKING NEW PROGRAM OFFERING FREE MUSIC EDUCATION ONLINE
Berklee College of Music, the world's largest independent music college and the premier institution for the study of contemporary music announce the launch of Berklee Shares. This groundbreaking new program provides free music lessons and encourages musicians to share and distribute these music lessons online. The Berklee Shares lessons are available at no charge and are made up of a growing catalog of MP3s, QuickTime movies and PDF files derived from curriculum developed at the college by its world-renowned faculty.
http://www.berkleeshares.com/
 
LIVING IN PARALLEL WORLDS: BLOGS AND COURSE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS
During the closing plenary session at the Syllabus Conference last July in San Jose, I made a comment about the software I was using to create and maintain my Weblog or blog. I was struck by the questions and comments my brief remark generated. A few years ago, mentioning blogging software would have caused a faint ripple of recognition in the audience. However, it seems clear that blogging is coming to the academy.
http://www.syllabus.com/news_issue.asp?id=155&IssueDate=11/12/2003
 
ELECTRONIC PORTFOLIO WHITE PAPER
Today’s electronic portfolio, or ePortfolio, is much like the Course Management System (CMS) of 1997 - there is not yet a coherent understanding of functional requirements, design specifications, or how and to what extent an electronic portfolio might benefit teaching and learning. CMS software did not receive wide acceptance until its usefulness and functionality could be justified and until it became easy-to-use and offered services unavailable from existing systems. Until the ePortfolio software environments can similarly demonstrate their effectiveness, ease-of-use, and transparent integration, they will not reach the level of acceptance that the CMS has received in the past few years. [PDF - November 3, 2003]
http://with.iupui.edu/WhitePaper/whitepaperV1_0.pdf
 
WHERE TECHNOLOGY AND COURSE DEVELOPMENT MEET
Higher education institutions are searching for models of successful training programs that help faculty members develop Web-based courses. Ideally, such programs will result in online courses that are well-designed, responsive to the learner, interactive, and consistent with stated instructional goals. Through its Office of Instructional Technology, Stephen F. Austin State University (SFA) implemented a training program to address these desired outcomes. The program, known formally as the Web Course Development (WCD) Workshop Series, was created to meet the needs of the increasing number of faculty members moving into the online teaching environment.
http://ts.mivu.org/default.asp?show=article&id=951
 

TECHNOLOGY NEWS
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FROGPAD AIMS TO CUT KEYBOARD SIZE
FrogPad is out to make the keyboard the size of your palm. The five-employee, Houston-based start-up is actively marketing a fully functional, 20-key keyboard at Comdex this week, which measures 3 inches by 5 inches--about the same size as a personal digital assistant. The typical keyboard contains 128 keys and is more than a foot long. The size reduction is possible through a close analysis of human anthropology and typing styles, according to Linda Marroquin, FrogPad's CEO. The 15 letters featured at the center of FrogPad's keyboard--a selection which includes the letters "T," "A," "E" and "H"--represent approximately 86 percent of average keyboard activity of English-language typists. Hitting a Shift key at the bottom of the green keyboard in conjunction with one of the 15 central keys leads to the rest of the alphabet.
http://news.com.com/2100-1121-5108001.html
 
THE MUSCLES, ACHES, AND PAINS OF OPEN SOURCE
In July the University of Wisconsin–Madison had another opportunity to participate in a standards-based, open-source software initiative. To opt in, I had to put up a little of the university's money. To opt out, I had to tell twenty-five of my friends and colleagues around the nation that I did not think this was a wise investment. If enough of us opted out, the project might fizzle. Or it might proceed without input and influence from the higher education community, and those of us in the community might miss the chance to get a product that meets our collective requirements. UW-Madison opted in. So did twenty-four other institutions. But I worry: are we committed enough?
http://www.educause.edu/pub/er/erm03/erm036_articles.asp?id=11
 
NO EASY SOLUTION TO SPYWARE
Lawmakers have yet to get a handle on the best way to combat computer spyware' that tracks Internet users' online activity, a nonprofit policy group said. Rather than drafting narrowly targeted legislation to outlaw specific snooping tactics, Congress should establish broad online privacy rights to protect against secret online surveillance, the Center for Democracy and Technology said. Concern about spyware has grown over the past several years as online advertisers and song-swapping networks like Kazaa have placed programs on users' computers to monitor their activity or use their computers' processors for other activities.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,61283,00.html
 
NEW MACHINE CAN DETECT DRUGS LIKE DOGS
A new invention can sniff like a dog, find drugs like a dog and help police catch criminals like a dog. But can the so-called "Dog on a Chip" replace the police officer's best friend? Georgia Tech researchers have developed a machine that can instantly sniff out cocaine and other illegal drugs without the hassle of feeding, training and interpreting a police dog. "This works the same way as the dogs," said Bill Hunt, the electrical engineering professor heading the project. "They're picking up on the vapors coming off the cocaine." From a few feet away, the device can "smell" microscopic amounts of a particular substance - as little as one-trillionth of a gram. So far it's only programmed to detect cocaine. But Hunt says it could be developed to sniff out other drugs, anthrax, bombs, chemical agents and even cancerous cells.
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20031120/D7UUEHBG0.html
 
IS TECH INDUSTRY A SAVIOR OR DANGER TO EDUCATION?
Technology companies and educational institutions are increasingly developing partnerships that involve everything from company-sponsored labs to multimillion-dollar equipment donations. Rather than provoking immediate protests over academic independence as they have in previous years, the arrangements are now accepted openly by many teachers and administrators desperate for resources.
http://news.com.com/2009-1023_3-5103223.html
 
MICROSOFT, PARTNERS DELAY SPOT WATCHES
Originally slated to launch at Comdex, the SPOT watch designed by Microsoft Corp. and its partners has been delayed until the first quarter of 2004 to accommodate further testing. Executives at Citizen Watch Co., one of the companies slated to manufacture SPOT watches, also said that they may pull out of the partnership and not ship a SPOT watch at all. The watches were originally supposed to ship this fall, according to a speech made by Microsoft's chief software architect, Bill Gates, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this past January.
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,1384267,00.asp
 
DIGITALWAY PULLS AHEAD OF OTHER KEYCHAIN DRIVES
The once-ubiquitous floppy disk, for decades the standard medium for transferring files from one personal computer to another, has been disappearing. Rarely do new computers even come with floppy drives. PC makers instead urge people to email files or "burn" files to blank CDs. But there's a better way. In the past 18 months small companies in Asia have been producing gadgets called keychain drives--also known as thumb drives. These are small plastic fobs, about the size of a key, stuffed with memory chips that retain their contents without electrical power. They hold between 16 megabytes and two gigabytes of data. On the end is a standard USB connector that fits into the USB ports built into every Windows and Macintosh PC for the past four or five years.
http://afr.com/articles/2003/11/13/1068674314947.html
 
PDA MARKET SUFFERS AT HAND OF FEATURE-PACKED PHONES
Worldwide shipments of personal digital assistants (PDAs) continued to decline in the third quarter of this year as mobile phones with similar functions claimed a portion of their market, Gartner Inc. said. Global PDA shipments slipped 0.2 percent in the third quarter to 2.52 million units, resulting in the eighth consecutive quarter of year-over-year declines.
http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/11/11/HNpdasuffers_1.html
 
IBM BUILDS TV-SIZED SUPERCOMPUTER
IBM Corp. said on Friday that it has built a supercomputer the size of a television based on microchip technology to be used in gaming consoles due out next year. IBM said the supercomputer, which can perform two trillion calculations per second, is a small-scale prototype of the Blue Gene/L supercomputer that it is building for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/993589.asp
 
MACROMEDIA UPDATES FLASH MX TO SILENCE CRITICS
Macromedia is offering a second chance with its Flash MX 2004 and Flash MX Professional 2004 products. In a prepared statement, the San Francisco-based company announced the availability of product updates that address a number of glitches and bugs inherent in the original product releases.
http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3107631
 
 
INTERNET/WIRELESS RELATED
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HOUSE PASSES ANTISPAM BILL
The U.S. House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to approve antispam legislation that could end more than six years of failed attempts to create a federal law restricting unsolicited commercial e-mail. The measure aims to curb unwanted e-mail advertisements for Viagra-like products and get-rich pitches by imposing fines and jail time for offenders. It passed by a vote of 392-5, following an all-night session of the House. The Senate is expected to follow.
http://news.com.com/2100-1024_3-5110622.html
 
FAST TRACK FOR SCIENCE DATA
The first leg of an ultra-high-performance network will go live this week in what its backers call the most important networking experiment since Arpanet, the military network that laid the foundation for the Internet. The National LambdaRail is the biggest, fastest network ever undertaken for scientific research. Created by a private consortium of universities and tech companies, the NLR will link hundreds of research institutions around the United States with a dedicated, high-speed optical network. The first leg will go live, linking Chicago's TeraGrid facility and the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center. The remainder of the network will be up and running by the end of 2004.
http://www.wired.com/news/infostructure/0,1377,61102,00.html
 
MACROMEDIA, AOL BRING IM CAPABILITIES TO CENTRAL
Macromedia Inc. released the developer version of Macromedia Central, a software environment that lets users access distributed information from desktop PCs and handheld devices using XML (Extensible Markup Language) and Web services. In addition, Macromedia announced the addition of instant-messaging (IM) capabilities to Central through a partnership with America Online Inc. (AOL) Based on Macromedia Flash, Central gives users continual access to information distributed over a network or the Internet, whether or not a user is connected.
http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/11/18/HNmacroaol_1.html
 
DESKBAR SEEKS IN SMALL SPACE
Google can now do Internet searches without launching an Internet browser, a breakthrough that could revolutionize search. The No. 1 search company recently introduced Google Deskbar, free software that embeds a small search box on the task bar at the bottom of Windows PCs. Because the box is always visible, a Web-connected PC user can enter a query at any time. A split-second later, Google search results appear in a window on the lower right corner of the screen.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2003-11-17-search_x.htm
 
STUDENTS AREN'T USING INFO TECHNOLOGY RESPONSIBLY
Colleges and universities that invest a lot of money in technology may want to focus more on teaching students to use it responsibly, a survey suggests. More than eight of 10 undergraduates (83%) regularly use information technology in their academic work, but an even larger share (87%) say their peers at least "sometimes" copy and paste information from the Web without citing the source, according to the 2003 report from the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE).
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2003-11-09-students-it_x.htm
 
CISCO LINES UP LATITUDE
Cisco Systems Inc. snapped up Web conferencing software maker Latitude Communications Inc. for about $80 million, beefing up its enterprise VOIP portfolio (see Cisco Gains Latitude). Latitude's desktop conferencing software enables office workers scattered in different locations to share and collaborate on documents over the Web in real time. Companies have increasingly turned to Web conferencing tools to cut costs and allay fears about traveling. Latitude’s MeetingPlace software has clocked 40 million minutes per month and is used by many of the top Fortune 50 companies, the company says.
http://www.boardwatch.com/document.asp?doc_id=43427
 
SCHOOL WEB ACCESS SOARS, DIGITAL DIVIDE STILL REMAINS
Internet access in U.S. public schools has grown from 3 percent in 1994 to 99 percent in 2002, but the digital divide still exists in homes with 41 percent of blacks and Hispanics using a computer at home compared to 77 percent of whites, according to two reports released by the U.S. Department of Education. One of the reports concludes that only 31 percent of students from families earning less than $20,000 use computers at home, compared to 80 percent of those from families earning more than $75,000.
http://cyberatlas.internet.com/markets/education/article/0,,5951_3101281,00.html
 
A PEEK BEHIND MICROSOFT'S FIREWALL AT 'WALLOP'
Microsoft Research is looking at how to leverage blogs, RSS feeds, wikis and other social-networking tools. When Microsoft showed a prototype of software code-named "Wallop" at last month's Professional Developers Conference, few attendees understood exactly what they were seeing. And the fact that Microsoft is sequestering Wallop behind a corporate firewall, allowing only a small number of researchers and their contacts to test the software, isn't helping to clarify matters. But Microsoft social computing group researcher Lili Cheng is starting to talk publicly in general terms, at least, about the company's foray into social-networking software. And Microsoft Research (MSR) is making screen shots available, showing Wallop and some of the other MSR social-computing technologies that are feeding into it.
http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,4248,1379283,00.asp
 
MICROSOFT BUILDS SPAM FILTERS INTO EXCHANGE
Microsoft Corp. Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates will use his keynote address at the annual Comdex 2003 trade show in Las Vegas to announce plans to make the company's Exchange e-mail server better at stopping unsolicited commercial ("spam") e-mail, according to information obtained by IDG News Service. Among other things, Gates will announce that Microsoft is adding heuristics-based anti-spam capabilities to future releases of Exchange Server 2003, which will enable Exchange Server to stop spam e-mail messages before they reach users' e-mail inboxes.
http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/11/14/HNmsspamfilter_1.html
 
NEW MIMAIL VIRUS POSES AS PAYPAL E-MAIL
Yet another version of the Mimail virus is on the loose, but this one has a twist: it poses as an e-mail from PayPal and attempts to trick recipients into surrendering their credit card data. Mimail.I has not spread very widely yet, but the nature of its ruse is worrying to anti-virus and identity theft experts. This year has seen an explosion in both virus activity and in electronic scams aimed at relieving consumers of sensitive personal and financial data. And now the two trends have merged. The e-mail message containing the virus has a subject line of "Your PayPal account expires," and contain a spoofed sending address of donotreply@paypal.com.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,4149,1383308,00.asp
 
 
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[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