Podcast Series: Innovations in Education

Explore the full series of eCampus News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.

Fifty of the best ed-tech products for colleges and schools

Here are our readers’ top picks for educational technology products and services in 2012-13.

Here are the results of our 2012-13 Readers’ Choice Awards, which recognize the educational technology products and services that have had the greatest impact in our readers’ schools.

This past spring, we asked readers to give us their top picks for school hardware, software, websites, and services. Nearly 1,300 readers responded.

In nominating their favorite ed-tech products, we asked readers to tell us how they’re using these products to improve teaching, learning, or school administration—and to what effect. We then chose the 50 best responses, which appear alphabetically by product name and grouped into two categories: K-12 and higher education.…Read More

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Survey: Ed-tech vision stunted by stagnant budgets

Eighty-eight percent of faculty see challenges moving away from the traditional lecture model.

Higher-education technology leaders have long called for a shift to more technology-based learning—so what’s stopping the revolution? Results of a recent survey identify limited budget and outdated infrastructure as the primary obstacles impeding transition to a new learning model.

Responses revealed a strong pull toward increased use of technology: Two-thirds of students expressed desire for more technology in their classrooms, and 76 percent of IT staff reported that faculty requests for help with ed-tech implementation have increased in the last two years.

The survey, administered by major technology vendor CDW-G in May and June of 2012, asked 1,015 students, faculty, and IT staff about new learning models in high schools and higher education. CDW-G released the survey results June 26 as a report entitled “Learn Now, Lecture Later.”…Read More

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Venture capital funding for ed tech at ‘unprecedented’ levels, expected to rise

Ed-tech innovators received investment capital 127 times in 2011.

Big-money investors poured more money into educational technology companies in 2011 than during the heady dot-com days of the late-1990s, according to a national market analysis that credits investor knowledge, in part, for the funding boom.

After a slump in investment capital during the mid and late 2000s, companies focusing on classroom technologies—including social media-centric solutions—are benefiting from a never-before-seen influx of funding from private investors and investment firms.

In a report released this week, “Fall of the Wall: Capital Flows to Education Innovation,” GSV Advisors, which assists education entrepreneurs and tracks investments in educational companies and products, documented a steady rise in investment that peaked last year.…Read More

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Colleges taking a team approach to eTextbooks

Six in 10 students said in a recent survey that they forgo buying required books because textbooks are too pricey.

Reining in exorbitant textbook costs is no longer a campus-by-campus venture: A unified approach, powered by EDUCAUSE and the Internet2 consortium’s NET+ cloud-based collaborative purchasing program, could make low-cost electronic textbooks available now, ed-tech leaders hope.

Colleges experimenting with digital textbooks can take months—sometimes years—to negotiate with publishers before their school’s modest eBook program is introduced to students now paying upwards of $1,100 a year for books.

This fall, campus technology leaders will closely track the results of an expansive eTextbook pilot program ranging across 28 campuses, creating what many in higher education believe could be a model for quickly bringing low-cost textbook options to students who, in some cases, have stopped buying required texts because they cannot afford the books.…Read More

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Ed-tech leaders schooled on interoperability standards

Interoperability presents an issue for educational technology leaders who often must integrate diverse products made by different developers.

When school technology directors purchase an innovative product from one vendor and an exciting upgrade from another vendor, schools can find themselves in a tangle of incompatible formats. A primer released this spring by the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) explains how adoption of interoperability standards can streamline technology systems in K-20 education.

Interoperability, the ability of different systems to work together, presents an issue for educational technology leaders who often must integrate diverse products made by different developers. Those developers, too, must walk a fine line when trying to create products that encourage brand loyalty but also can be readily adapted to diverse systems.

SIIA’s report, titled “Primer on K-20 Education Interoperability Standards,” provides a framework for understanding interoperability standards that facilitate the exchange of content from different technology applications and systems. To provide a context for standards’ development and implementation, the primer surveys the challenges and benefits of adopting interoperability standards.…Read More

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Congressional eLearning caucus could prove its worth in 2013

Analysts doubt Congress will finalize HEA reauthorization in 2013.

Online education advocates will have a legislative dog in the fight to reauthorize the Higher Education Act next year, thanks to a rare bipartisan charge to include web-based courses in national policy discussions.

The HEA, a law first passed in 1965 and last reauthorized in 2007, is due for an update next year. And while the occupant of the White House and the composition of Congress could be much different by January, educational technology leaders for the first time have a team of Congressional representation in the newly-formed eLearning caucus.

The caucus, formed in October by Congress members from the House’s political poles, will help push eLearning to the forefront of the legislative haggling sure to ensue when HEA reauthorization takes center stage, policy experts said.…Read More

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Predictive analytics driving university practices

Universities are using data to help make more calculated decisions.

As campuses seek to target prospective students and spend precious funds most effectively, more administrators are learning about predictive analytics—statistical techniques that gather data and help campus leaders make predictions about the future.

During its Business Analytics Online Education Conference, IBM tapped a number of college administrators to share their experiences with predictive analytics, and how the trend is helping to improve campus operations.

“Predictive analytics plays a very big role in terms of enrollment,” said Jimmy Jung, assistant vice president for enrollment management at the College at Brockport, which is part of the State University of New York system.…Read More

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Colleges seek cash for educational technology as budgets shrink

Thirty-five percent of college students said lecture capture technology has improved their grades.

Thirteen states are set to drop higher-education funding by double digits in 2012, the federal stimulus has run out, and student enrollment continues its uptick, forcing colleges and universities to find financially creative ways to fund pricey educational technology such as campus lecture capture systems.

By reclassifying lecture capture technology in a bid for federal money and dispersing the cost of lecture capture systems over several parts of a campus budget, educational technology leaders from colleges large and small are engaged in a kind of budgetary gymnastics to keep lecture capture systems that have proven popular among most students.

The budget-conscious ways to maintain—and even expand—lecture capture systems were detailed in a report published recently by the Center for Digital Education and Tegrity, a company that makes lecture capture technology.…Read More

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Our readers’ top ed-tech picks for 2012

Here are our readers' top picks for educational technology products and services in 2012.

Here are the results of our 2012 Readers’ Choice Awards, which recognize the educational technology products and services our readers have enjoyed the most success with.

Last fall, we asked readers to give us their top picks for school hardware, software, websites, and services. Nearly 1,400 readers responded via one of our three websites: eSchoolNews.com, eCampusNews.com, and eClassroomNews.com.

In nominating their favorite products, we asked readers to tell us how they’re using these products to improve teaching, learning, or school administration—and to what effect. We then chose the 50 best responses, which appear alphabetically by product name and grouped into two categories: K-12 and higher education.…Read More

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The ten most popular eCN stories of the year

Here are the 10 most popular eCampus News stories from 2011.

Recently, we published our editors’ picks for the 10 most significant higher-ed tech stories of 2011. Now, see what our readers think.

These 10 stories were the most popular among our readers in 2011, as judged by the number of page views they received at www.eCampusNews.com. If you missed any of them before, don’t worry: You can go back and read them now, simply by clicking on each headline.

Rules could prompt colleges to pull online programs in some states…Read More