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The April/May 2005 issue of Innovate is now available at http://www.innovateonline.info

Innovate is a peer-reviewed, bimonthly e-journal published as a public service by the Fischler School of Education and Human Services at Nova Southeastern University. It features creative practices and cutting-edge research on the use of information technology to enhance education.
We open the issue with an important query from Glenn Russell: What are the effects of distance in time and space on affective relationships between teachers and students? Distancing lessens sensitivity to the emotional states of others and can prevent educators from responding to students' boredom, frustration, low motivation, or anxiety. Russell argues that high-bandwidth synchronous communication, including visual and aural feedback, can help educators better understand their students' needs.
Joel Foreman and Roy Jenkins focus on one technology that may alleviate the distancing effect. Web conferencing systems (Webcons) include live audio and video while providing the conveniences that educators have come to expect from course management systems. Foreman and Jenkins enumerate the activities that Webcons make possible and discuss the financial resources required to bring them to the online classroom.
Susan LaCour describes a future in which portal systems provide students with personalized information; integrated platforms offer campus-wide resources in a central online location; and ePortfolios give prospective employers and institutions a complete portrait of a student's learning history. These technologies enable students to take charge of their own learning, thereby increasing their potential for personal and professional success.
David Gibson describes the Semantic Web's (SW) redefinition of the Internet. The SW is not merely a medium for accessing and sharing textual information; it enables the dynamic interoperability of programs across the Web. By unobtrusively gathering data related to a user's online activities, the SW can provide personalized learning resources, guidance, and evaluation, acting as a virtual teacher that is uniquely responsive to the needs of its student.
The next two articles provide pedagogical tips and techniques for making online learning more engaging for students and more rewarding for instructors. Tisha Bender shows educators several online applications for role playing, situating the time-tested technique in a virtual theater where students collaboratively apply their knowledge and experiences, and then critically analyze their own performances. Cleborne Maddux, Rhoda Cummings, Leping Liu, and John Newman follow with a practical, step-by-step guide to creating a well-organized online course. Their suggestions are particularly appropriate for colleagues who are developing a Web-based course for the first time.
Ed Klonoski presents a creative solution to the ubiquitous budgetary woes that frequently block technology purchases. Klonoski outlines Connecticut's recent acquisition of a statewide learning management system and provides tips on how multiple institutions can collaborate on purchasing arrangements that, in the end, will save them thousands of dollars on sophisticated software.
Finally, in his "Places to Go" column, Stephen Downes introduces readers to the New York Public Library's Digital Gallery-an online repository that contains more than 270,000 images from the library's archives. The Gallery offers users convenient browsing capabilities as well as background information on each image and bibliographic listings for further research. Other libraries have launched similar sites, paving the way for archival exploration at the click of a mouse.
Please forward this announcement to appropriate mailing lists and to colleagues who want to use IT tools to advance their work.

Many thanks.

Jim

----
James L. Morrison
Editor-in-Chief, Innovate
http://www.innovateonline.info
Professor Emeritus of Educational Leadership
UNC-Chapel Hill
http://horizon.unc.edu

The April/May 2005 issue of Innovate is now available at http://www.innovateonline.info

Innovate is a peer-reviewed, bimonthly e-journal published as a public service by the Fischler School of Education and Human Services at Nova Southeastern University. It features creative practices and cutting-edge research on the use of information technology to enhance education.

We open the issue with an important query from Glenn Russell: What are the effects of distance in time and space on affective relationships between teachers and students? Distancing lessens sensitivity to the emotional states of others and can prevent educators from responding to students' boredom, frustration, low motivation, or anxiety. Russell argues that high-bandwidth synchronous communication, including visual and aural feedback, can help educators better understand their students' needs.

Joel Foreman and Roy Jenkins focus on one technology that may alleviate the distancing effect. Web conferencing systems (Webcons) include live audio and video while providing the conveniences that educators have come to expect from course management systems. Foreman and Jenkins enumerate the activities that Webcons make possible and discuss the financial resources required to bring them to the online classroom.

Susan LaCour describes a future in which portal systems provide students with personalized information; integrated platforms offer campus-wide resources in a central online location; and ePortfolios give prospective employers and institutions a complete portrait of a student's learning history. These technologies enable students to take charge of their own learning, thereby increasing their potential for personal and professional success.

David Gibson describes the Semantic Web's (SW) redefinition of the Internet. The SW is not merely a medium for accessing and sharing textual information; it enables the dynamic interoperability of programs across the Web. By unobtrusively gathering data related to a user's online activities, the SW can provide personalized learning resources, guidance, and evaluation, acting as a virtual teacher that is uniquely responsive to the needs of its student.

The next two articles provide pedagogical tips and techniques for making online learning more engaging for students and more rewarding for instructors. Tisha Bender shows educators several online applications for role playing, situating the time-tested technique in a virtual theater where students collaboratively apply their knowledge and experiences, and then critically analyze their own performances. Cleborne Maddux, Rhoda Cummings, Leping Liu, and John Newman follow with a practical, step-by-step guide to creating a well-organized online course. Their suggestions are particularly appropriate for colleagues who are developing a Web-based course for the first time.

Ed Klonoski presents a creative solution to the ubiquitous budgetary woes that frequently block technology purchases. Klonoski outlines Connecticut's recent acquisition of a statewide learning management system and provides tips on how multiple institutions can collaborate on purchasing arrangements that, in the end, will save them thousands of dollars on sophisticated software.

Finally, in his "Places to Go" column, Stephen Downes introduces readers to the New York Public Library's Digital Gallery-an online repository that contains more than 270,000 images from the library's archives. The Gallery offers users convenient browsing capabilities as well as background information on each image and bibliographic listings for further research. Other libraries have launched similar sites, paving the way for archival exploration at the click of a mouse.

Please forward this announcement to appropriate mailing lists and to colleagues who want to use IT tools to advance their work.

Many thanks.

Jim

----
James L. Morrison
Editor-in-Chief, Innovate
http://www.innovateonline.info
Professor Emeritus of Educational Leadership
UNC-Chapel Hill
http://horizon.unc.edu

The April/May 2006 issue of Innovate, now available at www.innovateonline.info, focuses on changing the ways we think about technology and its role in educational settings. We open this issue with an interview with Joel Barker and Scott Erickson, co-authors of Five Regions of the Future: A New Way to Think about Technology (Penguin 2005). They encourage thinking about technology in terms of purposes and results, developing five interrelated groupings that form a new lexicon to help the general public participate in discussions about emerging technologies and to help us all understand the uses and potential results of a technology. (See http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=224)

Addressing the potential results of using video game technology in educational contexts, Michael Young, P. G. Schrader, and Dongping Zheng examine the learning environments provided by massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) using ecological psychology, a theoretical approach that emphasizes the interrelationship between the mind and its environment, and encourage teachers and designers to utilize the learning potential inherent in this popular medium. (See http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=224)

Our next four articles provide practical accounts of how technologies are currently being used to enhance the learning process for K-12 students, educational leaders, and university students. David Macquart of the Global Nomads Group, a group dedicated to heightening cultural understanding among K-12 children by using videoconferencing technology to bring together classes in different parts of the world, describes this important project. (See http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=219)

In turn, Donna Cooner and Ellyn Dickmann examine the advantages of using of e-journals to promote critical self-reflection, peer dialogue, and professional growth for interns in principal preparation programs. They also introduce us to Journey Mapping, a software program that supports structured e-journal writing for student principals and convenient data collection for their mentors and supervisors. (See http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=217 )

In college courses with large enrollments, the strategic use of technology can offer significant advantages as well. Jason Cole and Bruce Robertson illustrate how they used a model from the business world, market segmentation, to determine the diverse needs of students in a large core class; they then drew upon this model to develop a hybrid online/offline course that caters to different student populations. (See http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=61)
Johnny El-Rady describes how he adopted an electronic voting system to facilitate class participation and assess student learning in a large lecture course. (http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=171)

Our final feature offers recommendations for how technology should be used to maximize the value of existing university resources. John Shank and Steven Bell introduce us to the Administrators, Faculty, Librarians Instructional Parnership (A_FLIP), their model of collaboration that centers on a courseware system to facilitate involvement of the library in courses. (See http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=46)

Please forward this announcement to appropriate mailing lists and to colleagues who want to use IT tools to advance their work and please ask your organizational librarian to link to Innovate in their resource section for open-access e-journals.

Thanks!

Jim
----
James L. Morrison
Editor-in-Chief, Innovate
http://www.innovateonline.info
Professor Emeritus of Educational Leadership
UNC-Chapel Hill
http://horizon.unc.edu