Latest EDUCAUSE Quarterly
Posted by Ellen on June 29, 2008
As I’ve mentioned before, I firmly believe that associations follow higher education’s path when it comes to online learning. Having said that, if you agree with me, you’ll want to be sure to read the Summer 2008 issue of EDUCAUSE Quarterly pretty closely.
Lisa M. Lane’s article, “Toolbox or Trap? Course Management Systems and Pedagogy” summarizes what I’ve been thinking about this for a long time — thank you, Lisa, for defining the problem so succinctly. And coming from a faculty member’s point of view, it carries much more weight.
I’d add that many associations use this same sort of CMS for their online learning, and have suffered the same challenges. It’s not online learning that’s always the problem, but how it’s designed and how it’s delivered.
The EDUCAUSE Current Issues Committee has released it’s annual survey results. Without time enough in this entry to completely extrapolate the meaning, I do see two key items that have changed and are worth mentioning:
- “E-learning/Distributed Teaching and Learning” moved into the number 9 spot as a “need to resolve for the institution’s success.” It was not in the top ten last year.
- “Web systems and services” moved out of the top ten entirely under the category, “potential to become more significant” but moved up a few notches under “expenditure of most human and/or financial resources.”
Overall, the top issues for collegiate IT professionals remains security and ID management, along with funding and administrative/ERP information systems.
Where does online learning and access to it rank with your IT people? Is it on their radar at all?
