Below is a description of the January/February 2003 issue of The Technology Source, a free, refereed, e-journal published as a public service by the Michigan Virtual University at
http://ts.mivu.org
Please forward this announcement to colleagues who are interested in using information technology tools more effectively in their work. Also, please encourage your organizational librarians to add The Technology Source to their e-journal collections.
As always, we seek illuminating articles that will assist educators as they face the challenge of using information technology tools in teaching and in managing educational organizations. Please review our call for manuscripts at
http://ts.mivu.org/default.asp?show=call and send me a note if you would like to contribute such an article.
Many thanks, and best wishes for a Happy New Year!
Jim
--
James L. Morrison
Editor-in-Chief
The Technology Source
http://ts.mivu.org
Home Page:
http://horizon.unc.edu
INSIDE THE TECHNOLOGY SOURCE
Technology Source editor James L. Morrison interviews Frank Newman, director of The Futures Project at Brown University, to find out why many observers point to this year as a watershed moment for the incorporation of educational technology tools. See
http://ts.mivu.org/default.asp?show=article&id=1003
In the issue's second interview, Parker Rossman, the author of three book-length volumes concerning the future of higher education (all available free of charge on his website), provides his vision of the future. See
http://ts.mivu.org/default.asp?show=article&id=1041
Good-quality online course management systems are not hard to find, but they can be hard to pay for. In response to the need for tools that are both cost-efficient and sophisticated, Athabasca University has developed the Bazaar Online Conference System. Susan Hesemeier, Mawuli Kuivi, and Mike Sosteric describe the capabilities of this open source learning management system. See
http://ts.mivu.org/default.asp?show=article&id=1037
In our second tools article, Derek Keats describes the Knowledge Environment for Web-based Learning (KEWL), a fully operational content delivery and learning management system now available, source code and all. See
http://ts.mivu.org/default.asp?show=article&id=1021
With the emergence of open source systems like Bazaar and KEWL, you may wonder how they will affect the future of proprietary course management systems. If so, you will want to read Jonathan Finklestein???s interview with Matthew Pittinsky, chairman and co-founder of Blackboard, where they discuss the mission and future prospects of established course management systems. See
http://ts.mivu.org/default.asp?show=article&id=1039
New technologies have offered great advances to educators hoping to reach previously isolated populations abroad. Yet what about those whose educational efforts have been thwarted not by geography or politics, but by physical disability? Janna Siegel Robertson and James Wallace Harris explore how Web developers can make the information conveyed through their graphics, tables, color, and forms available to those with visual or motor impairments. See
http://ts.mivu.org/default.asp?show=article&id=1008
Online learning is causing a buzz in K-12 education as well as in higher education. Stevan Kalmon writes that Colorado alone has twenty virtual high school programs that take advantage of economies of scale through adopting common technology, content, and standards in order to provide high school courses to half the state's school districts.
See
http://ts.mivu.org/default.asp?show=article&id=1010
Corporate universities have utilized increasingly sophisticated, customized forms of online communication to market their courses. Verne Morland illustrates how NCR University uses automated translation software to personalize newsletters for its global audience, an innovation useful for any educational organization. See
http://ts.mivu.org/default.asp?show=article&id=1023
Increasing the frequency of tests is often cited as a means of promoting greater student success, yet this has traditionally involved a sacrifice of class time. Darrell Butler describes and evaluates the use of a proctored, computer-based testing (PCBT) facility as a way to overcome this dilemma at Ball State University. See http://ts.mivu.org/default.asp?show=article&id=1013