WaveVision, a web-based laundry services portal from Heartland Payment Systems, aims to take the stress out of dorm laundry. The online portal allows students to view the status of washers and dryers before making the trip to the laundry facility, eliminating unnecessary trips and wasted time.
While the rest of the working world uses summer as a time to decamp to waterfront locales, college and university officials take advantage of quieter campuses to catch up on projects and prepare for the return of students. At Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston, summer activities include training student leaders.
Blackboard, the ubiquitous online course-management tool, is a valuable resource for faculty, staff, and administrators alike. However, its learning outcomes are only as good as the quality of material that faculty members use to build all of their courses on the back end—a typically lengthy process.
Most people go to Disney to relax and have fun. For the past three years, David Zanolla, a communication instructor at Western Illinois University, has taken students in his Disney World Communication Culture course to see the principles they learn about in class in action. "The people who needed the most convincing were the parents," he says, adding that the spring break timeframe is usually thought of as party time. But with a daily schedule of 7 a.m.
The word “class” really doesn’t do justice to what medical students attend in the newly renovated lecture theatre at Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada.
Stockton College and the FAA Tech Center are geographically close in New Jersey, but intellectually even closer thanks to their shared interest in technology, research, and collaboration. These collective pursuits led experts at the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey to design and install a high-tech classroom at the Federal Aviation Administration's William J. Hughes Technical Center, which is located about 15 minutes from the school's campus.
Veterinary students who once huddled together to observe a surgeon's intricate moves now have another learning option at the University of Florida. There, AMX technology allows students near and far to have a bird's eye view of every small step of a procedure.
Most colleges and universities attending EduComm send one or two, sometimes three, people to the conference. Last June, Life University (Ga.) sent seven of its administrators and faculty to learn from the breakout sessions and see the latest higher education technology on the EduComm exhibit floor.
EduComm 2011 was a big success. Big in many ways. In addition to a record-setting attendance (more than 900 registered), EduComm 2011 had the biggest exhibit floor it has ever had, with more than 40 exhibitors.
Big, but not too big.
Students love lecture capture. Also enamored are administrators and faculty with active systems. Surveys and data collected from various institutions have shown it improves engagement and student outcomes. Just one example: Of first year medical students involved in the Mediasite pilot program at Penn State Hershey Medical Center, 88 percent agreed the system helped them achieve their educational goals.
Overlooking the Hudson River, this tech center helps orient the Marist College (N.Y.) campus to the river and will help enforce the role of technology across disciplines.
If you haven’t made your plans yet for EduComm 2011, let me take this opportunity to tell you about the variety of fast-paced, information-packed breakout sessions scheduled for attendees.
Professionals who have helped create inviting places for groups to study on campus have vivid memories of the uninviting study spaces of yesterday. “When we studied as a group, if we studied as a group, it was typically in the dining hall,” recalls Jeff Vredevoogd, director of Herman Miller Education.
Call it the marathon without a finish line: As new network demands such as mobile computing and rich media increase, campus IT strategists are trying to keep running ahead, to ensure that their networks can meet the need.
