Ten years ago, integrating videoconferencing into a college course required considerable effort on the part of the instructor and IT support staff. Today, video- and web-conferencing tools are more sophisticated. Distance education has morphed from audio- and videocassettes featuring talking heads to a more interactive experience with greater…

More than ever, faculty and students are working jointly on documents sharing screens in class, swapping course materials and taking their collective pulse through polls. Nevertheless, many faculty members complain that technical support for group projects is lagging on campus, leaving them searching for solutions elsewhere. While some faculty…

There is a civil war simmering in classrooms nationwide. Arrayed on one side are students who would sooner cut off an arm than sacrifice their mobile devices. On the other stand faculty members who expect to be the focal point of their classes and will not abide distractions. Caught in the crossfire are instructional technology professionals.…

With collaborative learning one of the hottest buzzwords in higher education today, it is tempting to believe that schools have taken to the concept like ducks to water. Sadly, that is not the case. The old-style lecture format has been employed for so long that faculty--even students--often struggle to transition to a more engaged approach to…

Eric Sheninger, the principal at New Milford High School in Bergen County, NJ, is well-known in ed tech circles as an evangelist for the use of web 2.0 tools in K-12 education. New Milford has made collaboration a pillar of its educational platform, and Sheninger believes that social media helps students learn how to collaborate. In fact, he…

Many districts around the country face some issues as they launch their own bring-your-own-device (BYOD) initiatives. Putting aside the instructional questions, the infrastructure issues alone can be daunting. In this article, four K-12 technology leaders from all over the United States describe the paths they took to BYOD, the preparations they…

Like the Roman god Janus, whose twin faces look both forward and back, "Campus Technology" ("CT") is using the new year as an opportunity to reflect on some of the biggest IT trends and issues of 2011 and predict their fate in 2012. In the turbulent world of higher ed IT, this is no easy task--yesterday's news can easily become tomorrow's snooze.…

January brings many opportunities for change. The new year also allows district technology leaders and innovators to reflect on how the rapid pace of technological change is impacting what happens in their classrooms. Instructional technologies that were all the rage a year ago (netbooks) can be swept aside by this year's favorite (iPads).…

In this article, the authors present the 2012 Campus Technology Innovators. These IT leaders have deployed extraordinary technology solutions to meet campus challenges. The authors also recognize the vendors and products involved in making these innovative projects a success. The 10 winners are: (1) University of Arizona (Student Systems and…

With the exception of a plague of locusts, it seems as if the past five years have thrown every imaginable challenge at IT--from the incredible shrinking budget to BYOD and now the MOOC monster. For those of a superstitious bent, these were probably just appetizers to the crises that will inevitably accompany a year featuring the number 13 (cue…

This is the first article in a six-part series on the elements of a collaborative classroom: furniture, social media, video/web conferencing tools, collaborative software, interactive devices, and mobile devices. With most universities facing tight budgets, convincing administrators to invest in expensive new classrooms is a challenge. Many higher…

As faculty members add online and multimedia elements to their courses, colleges and universities across the country are realizing that there is a lot of work to be done to ensure that disabled students (and employees) have equal access to course material and university websites. Unfortunately, far too few schools consider the task a top priority.…

With their budgets under increasing pressure, many campus IT directors are considering open source projects for the first time. On the face of it, the savings can be significant. Commercial emergency-planning software can cost upward of six figures, for example, whereas the open source Kuali Ready might run as little as $15,000 per year when…

In many ways, specialized computer labs are the black holes of IT organizations. Budgets, equipment, employees--even space itself--are sucked in. Given a choice, many IT shops would engage warp drive and escape their gravitational pull forever. While Captain Kirk might have looked to Scotty for a fix to the problem, colleges and universities are…

Vendors sometimes get the chilly on-campus reception. While they believe in building long-term relationships to make universities more competitive, some CIOs simply aren't interested. On the flip side of the coin, many administrators feel such coolness is warranted. Indeed, anyone who has attended a higher education IT conference can detect a…