Review of Technology in Education Sites

Alex Chapin — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 17:21:39 +0000

To help us create a section of the LIS site on Curricular Technology, I thought it would be good to see how other institutions publish comparable information. What we are currently calling “curricular technology” is described in various ways including “instructional technology“, “educational technology,” “academic technology,” and “technologies for teaching, learning and research.” What all of these labels have in common is seems to be the use of technology in education.

Here is a list of sites related to technology in education along with the blurbs these site use to describe themselves that could serve as model for a Curricular Technology site at Middlebury:

Spark Tools for Tufts (also see: Tufts University Blackboard)
Spark is a suite of communication and collaboration tools sponsored by UIT and designed to enrich your teaching, learning, research and co-curricular experience at Tufts! Easily create online web pages and sites using a blog or a wiki, publish your podcasts, discuss ideas in online forums, upload and annotate video and audio, set up and participate in online conferences.
also see: Tufts Academic Technology
UIT Academic Technology enables the university and its diverse academic communities to realize their vast potential in teaching, learning, and research through the innovative design and meaningful integration of technology to meet broad and local goals. (Projects)

Technologies for Teaching, Learning and Research
Middlebury has a variety of technologies for teaching, learning and research available to Middlebury faculty, students and staff including tools for creating websites, blogs, wikis, podcasts and online discussions. For more information on these technologies and projects at Middlebury using them, see the LIS Educational Technology Wiki

Amherst Academic Technology Services (Amherst Blackboard)
Academic Technology Services (ATS) supports the faculty in the effective use of information technology in teaching and research. This includes training and consulting, identifying beneficial curricular technologies, and facilitating communication about successful practices.

Berkeley Educational Technology Services
Educational Technology Services is Berkeley’s central campus resource providing technology tools, training and support for faculty, staff and students in their work as teachers, learners, researchers and collaborators.

MIT Office of Educational Innovation and Technology (OEIT)
The Office of Educational Innovation and Technology works with faculty, staff and students to enable and promote the development and dissemination of innovative uses of technology in teaching and learning. OEIT focuses on three key areas… 1. Bridging Research and Learning 2. Linking Content to the Curriculum 3. Fostering Communities of Innovation and Practice
MIT OpenCourseWare:
MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) is a web-based publication of virtually all MIT course content. OCW is open and available to the world and is a permanent MIT activity.

Stanford Technology Support for Courses (also see: Center for Teaching and Learning)
Technology Support for Courses is Stanford’s link-gateway to the rich array of services that support teaching and learning.
also see: Academic Technology Specialist Program
Stanford’s Academic Technology Specialists work in alignment with the University’s commitment to excellence in education and its general vision to improve teaching, learning, and research by implementing and developing new technologies. Academic Technology Specialists collaborate with faculty and staff in departments or programs and provide leadership in innovative uses of information technology for education and research.

New Blog Theme

Alex Chapin — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 15:26:53 +0000

Adam reviewed the code for ShadowBox, the new WordPress theme I developed and installed it in on WordPress at Midd. Of course, I immediately used it on our CT team blog and took advantage of some of its capabilities to give a sense of the new possibilities for layout and presentation that it introduces.

I should make it clear that this theme doesn’t introduce any functionality that other themes haven’t explored. It is modeled first and foremost on Kubrick, the default WordPress theme. In addition to this basic theme, I looked at a number of the most popular themes at wordpress.org including Atahualpa, Ahimsa, iNove to get a sense of the direction of theme development in the WordPress community.

I am hoping this will help us determine where we want to publish our work. In particular, whether we want to merge all of our work into the new LIS blog and discontinue this blog or perhaps keep this blog around an example of innovative uses of WordPress…

Towards a better Features Matrix

Alex Chapin — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 14:32:18 +0000

A common approach to choosing a technology solution is to create a “feature matrix” which lists all the features required and numerical rates or weights each solution’s implementation of that feature. The best solution is then that one with the highest “score.”

For a good critique of this strategy see: CMS Selection – Death to the Features Matrix. This article suggests another approach, that of listing “doubts” regarding the importance of features or a solution’s implementation of a feature.

Library & Information Services » Reviews

Review of Technology in Education Sites

New Blog Theme

Towards a better Features Matrix