Academic Technology News

Jim Groom, a technology specialist at the University of Mary Washington, has been a valuable resource to us in launching our Wordpress Multiuser installation at Wmblogs.net. Recently Jim returned from vacation and fired up a post on the limitations of Blackboard and the possibilities of an alternative reality: exit stage left: Edupunk. Wikipedia defines Edpunk as:

Edupunk is a term that has recently emerged among education bloggers. Coined first by Jim Groom in his blog, [[1]],Groom the term refers to educators and education strategies that engage a do it yourself (DIY) spirit. Most instructional uses of blogs, wikis, and podcasting among many other uses of emerging technologies might fall under the umbrella of DIY education or Edupunk.

Examples of Edupunk are Legos, chalk, Hypercard, Moodle, students’ art work on the outside wall of the classroom, and students teaching their teachers how to use technology.

Edupunk is also a rejection of efforts by government and corporate interests in using emerging technologies to exercise control over education, its processes, and its stakeholders. There is also an element of resistance to large and influential education businesses cooping emerging, collaborative, DIY technologies and techniques and repackaging them as their own product.

Note: The Wikipedia entry may not be up for long as the editors have classified it as “Non-notable neologism, term only coined a few days ago.” The article is proposed for deletion five days from now.

The term is getting lots of attention–including a post in the Chronicle.

Gardner recently twittered that he was not edupunk; neither am I. As a progresso-radical-humanist I’m in sympathy with many of the sentiments, but I could never get that kind of haircut.

A Computer Lab That Students Use but Never See - Chronicle.com

In the year or so, Pablo, John Drummond and I have attended several meetings on the Virginia Virtual Computing Labs which is an attempt to build on the work that NC State has done. I’m still hoping that we can find to use virtual machines to finish up the data mining project that we funded through the business school. I think that data mining is a topic that has wide applications in public policy, government, economics and the School of Education–if we find a way to make the software available conveniently and inexpensively.

The Chronicle recently ran this article on the work that NC State has been doing and it mentions our VVCL project.

At George Mason, the executive director of instructional technology, Sharon P. Pitt, says the university is adopting the model in partnership with universities across Virginia, using software developed by North Carolina State.

Pablo is working with Chon and SAS tech folks to setup a workshop for early October to explore some of the SAS capabilities–perhaps with some folks from Institutional Research who are big SAS users as well. Additional information is available on the project wiki site.

Top-Ten IT Issues, 2008 (EDUCAUSE Review) | EDUCAUSE CONNECT

Educause has posted the annual Top 10 Issues article. This is the 9th year that Educause has surveyed chief information officers at member institutions. Not surprisingly, there’s not much academic on the list; items relating to Course Management Systems and Faculty Development, Support and Training no longer make the top 10.

1. Security
2. Administrative/ERP/Information Systems
3. Funding IT
4. Infrastructure
5. Identity/Access Management
6. Disaster Recovery / Business Continuity
7. Governance, Organization, and Leadership
8. Change Management
9. E-Learning / Distance Education
10. Staffing / HR Management / Training

The members of the current issues committee have identified some notable trends including the replacement of strategic planning with change management, and the re-emergence of staffing as a top 10 issue. As usual, Educause does an excellent job of providing resources for folks who are interested in learning more.