Nowadays, college and university auxiliary services departments are turning to text messaging types of technologies to move a host of programs and offerings into the mobile environment. A July 2007 study by Youth Trends indicated that 95 percent of college freshmen come to school with a cell phone or other handheld device, and 78 percent of them…

To say the American economy is in a precarious mode would be the understatement of the century. Banks have foundered, American industry is looking for federal bailouts, and belts are tightening everywhere. Not surprisingly, higher education officials at private institutions are wondering which students will be able to afford ever-escalating…

By this time of the year, springtime rituals are blossoming like begonias, and that's true for higher education, too. Students move inexorably toward the end of another year; professors get ready for summer session; and in campus technology departments, CIOs and other decision-makers furiously set their plans to purchase hardware and software for…

More and more colleges and universities today have discovered electronic record-keeping and record-sharing, made possible by document imaging technology. Across the country, schools such as Monmouth University (New Jersey), Washington State University, the University of Idaho, and Towson University (Maryland) are embracing document imaging. Yet…

If a school is seeking to incorporate more collaborative approaches to teaching and learning, the design of the learning environment--whether it's a classroom or a more informal space--can be a critical factor in making this transformative move. Technology, in particular, can play a pivotal role in enabling students to work effectively in teams…

This article presents an interview with Jim Hirsch, an associate superintendent for technology at Piano Independent School District in Piano, Texas. Hirsch serves as a liaison for the open technologies committee of the Consortium for School Networking. In this interview, he shares his opinion on the significance of open source in K-12.

Metaphysically speaking, the idea of self-reflection has been the subject of discussion for thousands of years. The idea carried human beings through the Renaissance, and an entire movement tied to it sparked a sociopolitical movement called the Enlightenment. In more recent times, thought leaders such as Immanuel Kant, Karl Marx, and Sigmund…

October is national Cyber Security Awareness Month, and for the world of higher education, that means it is time to take a look at defense systems and plan for the future. Clearly, more planning is needed now than ever before. According to the majority of IT market research firms, phishing and identity theft have leapfrogged spam and spyware as…

Across the country, public and private school districts alike are hiring CIOs and IT managers with volumes of experience in the business world. The thinking behind this trend is simple: Hire someone from the private sector and he or she will run the district's IT like a business. For the big-city district of Chicago Public Schools (CPS), the…

Not that many years back, portals were nothing more than splash pages from which users could click on links to navigate a school's web-based resources. Today, however, they are much more: single sign-on gateways that easily enable users to do everything from pay tuition and view transcripts, to purchase parking permits, and sell used books. Still,…

There was a time when being a teacher at Lenawee Intermediate School District (MI) meant getting in line--a long line--if a teacher wished to get hold of audiovisual equipment for the class. Teachers had to reserve the equipment weeks in advance. Next, once the time came to use it, representatives from the district's A/V department had to quite…

In this article, the author offers six best practices for physical and data security convergence. These are: (1) assess the cable plant; (2) choose wisely; (3) be patient; (4) engineer for high availability; (5) test the converged network to make sure it works; and (6) don't forget the humans.

The technology is simple: Mobile technologies such as handheld computers and global positioning systems work in sync to create an alternate, hybrid world that mixes virtual characters with the actual physical environment. The result is a digital simulation that offers powerful game-playing opportunities and allows students to become more engaged…

Original research and content creation in the university environment have historically been the domain of faculty and their graduate students. Nowadays, however, undergraduate programs at universities across the country are putting undergrads in the center of the action. This article describes some of these programs--at Duke University (North…

This article describes a whole new way to communicate news and information to students and other campus members. The College of Business Administration at Creighton University (Nebraska), which has close to 900 students and provides instruction in everything from economics and finance to entrepreneurship and marketing, recently installed four…