New Technologies Transform Higher Education
By Rebecca Miller
UniversityDecisions.com recently examined the use of mobile communication in higher education. Colleges and universities are now utilizing mobile applications and cell phone features to increase “productivity, communication and connectivity with students” while enhancing the classroom experience. The use of mobile is just one of many technologies that educators are utilizing to transform higher education.
Blackboard, a virtual learning management system, recently shared its upcoming collaboration with McGraw-Hill, Barnes &Noble and Follett Higher Education to offer learning materials, such as e-textbooks, through its online platform, the Examiner reported. This collaboration will allow Blackboard “to integrate course management with interactive texts,” while offering “digital media retailers the opportunity to expand their marketing and reach into academia,” according to the news source.
At Duke University, students will begin utilizing iPads this fall for field research. According to Campus Technology, "our primary goal is to equip our students with a toolset that allows them to make the most of their time in the field," said Associate Professor of Sociology Jen'nan Read. "As calculation, graphing, and presentation-creation functions of the iPad are put to use in the field, so too is the ability for students to focus on mastering the more complex methods by which they are basing their research." Campus Technology reported that Duke anticipates that the Apple tool will increase research efficiency “by allowing students in low-resource settings to capture more data using one device than the traditional methods of data collection.”
In addition to integrating new technologies into degree programs, higher education institutions are establishing themselves as technological experts. The University of Arizona and Arizona State University, for instance, have teamed up to create a certificate program that trains middle and high school teachers on how to use new technologies in their classroom,” Campus Technology reported. The certificate program, called Teach Tec, is a 12-hour course that teaches Arizona teachers how to use technologies such as Flip video cameras, Poll Everywhere, SurveyMonkey, Wordle, and YouTube to enhance the learning experience.
Each year, New Media Consortium and EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative release the Horizon Report which shares six areas of emerging technology likely to significantly impact higher education. The most recent report identified mobiles, cloud computing, geo-locating, the personal web, semantic-aware applications and smart objects to be the latest technologies to hit higher education.
According to the report, cloud-based applications will provide students and educators with access to shared information, programs and applications from anywhere and any device. While Geo-locating, will open “opportunities for field research and data acquisition in the sciences, social observation studies, medicine and health, cultural studies and other areas.” The personal web is providing the “ideal toolsets for research and learning,” allowing for tagging, categorization and publishing of work online, instantly. Semantic-ware applications will be utilized through a website like Twine, a social network in which students and educators can view, submit, research and connect with others about particular topics of interest. Finally, smart objects which are objects with unique identifiers that can track information may be used in libraries to track books, in the medical field to track equipment and in archeology to track finds.
These are just few of the many technologies being integrated into higher education. Stay tuned to UniversityDecisions.com for more articles on emerging technologies in higher education.