5 Higher Ed Tech Trends To Watch in 2011 | The Sloan Consortium

In this week's assignment, we learned how to use Diigo.  Before this class, I thought "Diigo" was the name to a song about a dog, but had one extra "i" instead of an "n" (D I N G O).  I know that there are several uses that I can incorporate into my daily work using Diigo. 

One of my job duties is writing grants.  I often need statistical data and other related research in writing a grant proposal.  I have so many websites and articles that I have on my favorites that sorting through them all takes a considerable amount of time.  Using Diigo, I can know sort my library of materials into key words and pull retrieve only focus on what I am currently working on for the grant proposal.  I also need this information when I am writing press releases and needing a few facts for the article I am writing. 

I see other uses for Diigo.  I work on several committees or work groups that sharing research and informative websites is an important function of my job.  I'm excited about sharing Diigo with my team members in how to use Diigo with them.  As they are doing research and finding informative articles and websites, they can in turn share this information with me.  I likewise can do the same for them.  I also like the feature that I do not need to read the entire article, but highlight what is important. 

My first experience in using Diigo was researching topics related to "technology and higher education."  I found two interesting articles on future trends in technology in higher education.  The first article discussed the increasing demand of using The Cloud:  5 Higher Ed Tech Trends To Watch in 2011 | The Sloan Consortium.

"The Cloud Computing Movement Will Continue."  "Investing  in purchase-and-install software is falling by the wayside as institutions catch  onto the value of using "cloud" applications that are housed (and accessed)  online. Not only are these options more affordable and easier to implement, but  they also include vast storage capacity that can be used for, say, portfolio  assessments. "Using cloud computing, schools can create large collections of  loosely-sorted data (such as school records, written documents and even video  recordings)," said Bob Spielvogel, CTO at EDC, a Newton, MA-based nonprofit  that creates programs to address educational challenges, "and then utilize that  information to track project activity and conduct portfolio assessments across the student's entire college career." With these and other uses gaining ground in the higher education space, expect cloud computing's popularity to grow in 2011." 

Unfortunately for me, I do not have a clue about what "The Cloud" is.  This article reinforces the need to have a better understanding of what "The Cloud" is and how to use this tool in higher education.  The second article on trends to watch is the top 12 cool collaborative web tools in higher ed:  12 Cool-laborative Web 2.0 Tools -- Campus Technology.

I was very interested when I was reading this article, because one of the top web tools listed is called, "Join.Me."  I have heard of this web tool and have been meaning to do some research about it for the last four months.  This gave me a great opportunity to link school and work together.  The article stated,

"Enter join.me  in your browser, and you're on your way to sharing your screen with anyone with whom you share the access code. Join.me also allows you to transfer control to allow others to interact with applications running on your screen. A phone conference feature lets everyone looking at your screen dial in to a common call."

I am excited to experiment with this tool to assist those committee members that cannot attend, because of travel time the ability to participate in meetings.

I was also interested in the topic of blended education.  I have really enjoyed the blended education I have had access to at UW Oshkosh.  I know that if the entire program was offered only in a traditional format of on campus instruction, I would not have pursued my degree.  I enjoyed the article in Education.com:  Technology and Higher Education | Education.com."  The article spotlighted the benefits of blended instruction.

"The University of Central Florida has strategically implemented blended learning  into its institutional practice. “They’re really the leader in terms of an  institutional strategy,” Owston says. “They’ve found that students by far and  large tend to prefer this. And it’s cut down on capitol—they’re able to make  better use of existing resources.

”Garrison’s recent research has also focused on blended learning. “There a lot of  evidence to suggest that it’s even more effective than other learning  environments,” he says. “It combines two kinds of communication—face-to-face  verbal communication and online written communication. It’s a more rigorous and  enhanced way to learn, Garrison says." 

I believe blended education will continue to be a preferred learning environment for many students and more colleges will offer this as one of its learning options.

Another interesting article was the importance of incorporating learning into the learning environment for students.  A study found, "38% of College Students Can't Go 10 Minutes Without Tech [STATS]."  The study found:

"Seventy-three percent of them said they would not be able to study without some  form of technology, and 38% said that they could not even go more than 10  minutes without checking their laptop, smartphone, tablet or ereader."

I am now teaching some classes at Northeast Wisconsin Technical College.  I plan on incorporating more technology into what I am doing in the classroom.

The last article I found was related to mobile apps.  I work with the Marketing department at the college and we are exploring purchasing campus mobile app.  The article, "As Mobile Devices Multiply, Some Colleges Turn Away From Building Campus Apps - Technology - The Chronicle of Higher Education" found

"Colleges have been using mobile apps, but there is now a new single mobile web site that can provide the same service for significantly less.  College officials who favor mobile Web sites say that developing apps is  getting too expensive. It can require creating and updating multiple versions of  a single program, one for iPhones and another for Android phones, for instance.  By contrast, a single mobile Web site can work with all kinds of devices,  potentially lowering development costs."

I will be sharing this information at my next meeting with the Marketing Department.

This course has been invaluable at broading my very limited knowledge of technology.  I know that I will be using Diigo on a daily basis in my work.