Campus Computing Survey results show Blackboard losing market share, mobile computing on the rise | Inside Higher Ed

Mobile apps powered by the LMS is analogous to putting a Ferrari body on a Pinto chassis and engine. It will look great but have very little go. If "Mobile Picks Up Speed" means that, there is a huge opportunity for an institution the truly understands m-Learning.

Campus Computing Survey results show Blackboard losing market share, mobile computing on the rise | Inside Higher Ed

The distance education game changer

Yesterday, Apple announced its iPhone 4 with iOS 4. By all accounts, the device is an amazing piece of technology but hardware alone will not “change the game.” Over the past few months, Apple has been feuding with Gizmodo for releasing picture of the iPhone 4 hardware it obtained from a device “lost” in a California pub. Probably more of a publicity stunt by Apple, the pictures release a few months ago had a tantalizing clue to Apple’s vision of the future. The forward facing camera certainly indicated that video conferencing was on its way, but until yesterday’s introduction and demonstration of Facetime, it was hard to believe that a device so small could deliver a high quality video conference. Amazingly, the technology operating with few hiccups and seem to be extremely appealing for educators. It remains to be seen if carriers like AT&T and Verizon can produce the bandwidth necessary to make instant video conferenceing ubiquitous, but given the potential there is no doubt that this technology can be a “game changer” for distance education.

Virtualization, another health education trend

As organizations, most universities have committed the resources and personnel to building an independent and flexible structure for the education of their students. The delivery of a large infrastructure projects are of paramount global importance, but what fine structure needs to be created to support that endeavor?

That brings us back to the question of current infrastructure. Most universities implement a traditional client-server base infrastructure. This infrastructure is characterized by large number of PCs and small number of servers being supported by personnel at the desktop. This creates a situation where the majority of your IT staff’s time is spent at the desktop supporting end-users.

This is the typical dilemma of the IT department under this type of infrastructure, but with today’s technology, is it time to think outside the box for other solutions?

The simple answer is yes. As a educational institution, today’s universities have a unique opportunity to construct an environment that will serve them for many years to come. Universities should invest in the technologies of the future to support growing enterprises. What will the technology infrastructure of the academy look like in 5 years? 10 years? 20 years?

Since technology is constantly changing, it is important to watch the trends in the industry. After much reading, research, and watching industry trends, the conclusion has been reached that the future of the educational workstation is in virtual technology. This is not just virtual desktop installation, but a completely virtual installation that will give the user the most freedom, but with most security for IT. The PC support technician of tomorrow will be a server administrator managing virtual machines, applications and profiles running on centralized computers housed in a datacenter.

What is virtualization? In computing, virtualization is the abstraction of computing resources. It detaches the operating system from specific PC hardware and delivers a virtual environment. Additionally, virtualization allows for the delivery of application resources without affecting the base operating system.

All of the current vitalization models on the market today are trying to compete for the IT dollar. In essence the competition is between Application Virtualization vs. OS Virtualization. Once one digs past the marketing hype of the products, it is discovered that the usage of these technologies are independent and have very little overlap in the datacenter space. In other words, application virtualization does not replace operating system virtualization or vice versa; they complement each other. Taken together, they can provide a new, powerful, and secure experience for the enterprise end user.

This partnership between competing virtualization technologies is the future of the business desktop. This melding of concepts will produce a situation where the PC support for faculty and students in an organization will be done by a server administrator reducing response times.

Universities should invest its time and money building an infrastructure that will be fast and flexible in the year 2012 and beyond. That investment should position the infrastructure to utilize the coming desktop revolution. PC infrastructure dollars should be invested in three key technologies; Virtualized Desktops, Application Virtualization, and ubiquitous remote computing infrastructure.

This will provide for the building of a completely virtualized network that will allow for higher degree of security for information, but give more flexibility for users than they have ever had before. This unique vision will allow institutions to deliver highly available resources to learning communities.

By leveraging virtualization, a university would create centralized desktops in the data center that can follow a user to any terminal. The combination of these technologies will allow for a completely secure and locked-down PC environment, but will allow users to install virtual applications on their desktop. Once the user is empowered, that individual can install only approved applications and security can be assured that individual users are not installing viruses or malware on their desktops.

This new model presents the most flexible experience for our users, allows for IT to comply with licensing agreements, and provides the most secure computing environment for faculty and student. Centralized data and desktops are the most cost effective and secure methods to provide services to users. Technology has brought the desktop full circle to its terminal past.

Distributed Learning and Emerging Technology

Technology is great, but what we see today is emerging instruction. Social media and interaction is changing how individuals learn. Increasingly, our educational experience both formally and informally are highly mobile, interactive and distributed. True understanding of information requires an individual go through an experiential process of connecting underlying facts in such a way as to construct an individual understanding of a concept (Kant, 1781; Knowles, 1980; Merriam, Caffarella and Baumgarner, 2007). In the past that experiential process in many cases was much more linear than it is today. Recognizing those facts and focusing on future technologies indicate a type of education that is less didactic, less linear and more gear to providing information-on-demand and opportunities for the individual to construct their own meaning. In other words, the process becomes as important as the destination.

Systems of the future will increasingly be object-oriented, platform independent, use artificial intelligence, and in the very distant future be accessed via neural implants. Indicates a future where students experience learning in a more tangible way. Programs, services, and social networks will be flexible and tailored to enhance student and faculty interactions while supporting independent and individual styles of learning. Information technology will provide a service that will create and nurture a community of learning making information resources ubiquitous and universal, securely available to everyone, at anytime, from anyplace.

1. Merriam, S.B., Caffarella, R.S., & Baumgartner, L.M. (2007). Learning in adulthood: A comprehensive guide . San Francisco, Ca: John Wiley & Sons, INC..
2. Kant, I. (1781). The Critique of Pure Reason. Hampshire, England: Palgrave Macmillian (original Work Published In 1781).
3. Knowles, M.S. (1980). The modern practice of adult education: From pedagogy to andragogy. Chicago, Illinois: Associated Press.

Instructional Design and Rich Media

I was slightly disappointed in the chapters of the book, Trends and Issues In Instructional Design and Technology, when discussing instructional design for corporate and military. The tone seems to be one of advice on what and what not to do as an ID consultant for corporations and especially the readings about the military. Regardless of my impression of the writing, the chapters did bring forward some excellent information about instructional design within the context of those two systems.

The concept of rapid prototyping appeals to my training as a computer programmer. In an earlier post I referenced RUP as being similar to research design. Obviously, rapid prototyping is much like RUP as well, as Dr. Lou pointed out to me. The earlier you can get a product, be it software or instruction, in the hands of the client, the better the result and in a much reduced time frame.

The concept of team building that is stressed in the military can be used in everyday education. Using small, teams, or social groups can greatly enhance the education of students. Additionally, the use of simulations in the military has a long history. During WWII the Army Aircorp would take those soldiers that man B-57 gun turrets in the backs of trucks driving on bumpy dirt roads. Each GI had a shotgun and they were required to shoot clay pigeons that popped up out of seemingly nowhere to learn how to lead a target. This exercise was designed to simulate shooting at German/Japanese aircraft during combat.

Today’s military has taken the simulation practice to another level. Not only do they train their own soldiers in tactics and teamwork during their rigorous training program, they begin that training before they are even enlisted. In 2003, the US Army launched a first person shooter game called America’s Army (http://www.americasarmy.com/). This simulation is not only a recruiting tool for the Army, it is a massively multiplayer online game where the game player joins units and must operate within the structure of that unit. The game teaching the potential recruits unit tactics and the culture of the Army and is a good example of instructional design meeting a great rich media platform.

Change is easy; transition is hard

I once read a book that stated that change is easy; transition is hard. Having review the concepts of piecemeal versus systemic change, I find it hard to believe than any organization of significant size can actually perform a systemic change if the same personnel will be used in the reorganization. If you picture organizations like ocean liners, one could characterize these organizations as massive with little rudders. The chapters equated piecemeal change to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. To take the analogy further, implementing change and transition at the systemic level like SUTE and GSTE is akin to changing the rudder on the Titanic while it is headed for the iceberg. The result can be significantly worse than expected. The size of the organization will have an effect on its ability to change and how that change must take place. I think in many cases our desire is to have systemic change because we want the end product as fast as possible, but piecemeal is an excellent approach for large entities.

What I find interesting in our book, Trends and Issues in Instructional Design and Technology, is that it speaks of problem versus process or piecemeal versus systemic. The true fact is that in my experience the best form of change that helps people accepts transition is one that is systemic implemented via a piecemeal process. The only advantage that a true systemic change gives the organization is speed. Does the benefits of speed out weight the affects of the transition? In many cases it does not so the concept should be a process of systematically approaching the concept laid-out in the systemic change.

Informal Learning, the Apple iPad and Richard Clark

I recently participated in a class debate on the affects of rich media on learning. Richard Clark authored one of the position paper for the debate in 1983. Clark’s research is based on the statement, “What affect does different media have on learning?” In his findings, he states, “there is no learning benefits to be gained from employing any specific medium to deliver instruction” (Clark, 1983) and I asked was this the correct question to ask for today’s generation of students?

I my initial debate reply I stated, “the Internet is a phenomenon that has allowed individuals to transcend traditional barriers of location and time. As a species our success has been defined by our ability to pool talent, knowledge and resources within a social network. Our entire understanding of life and the universe comes from our ability to gather and develop concepts within a social an “arena-of-ideas”. It stands to reason that the vehicle of that connection would have some effect on learning. Broadcast media once primarily dominated our society, but today’s culture now operates in an interactive, information-on-demand world. Has changes in society and its preferred media usage, the Internet, relegated Clark’s research to a bygone era of a society dominated by broadcast learners obtaining their information in a passive media via the lecture, newspapers, and television sets watching the nightly news?”

I still stand by the thoughts and another new technology just released makes me think Clark's observations are correct for a different era. I would like to transport the Clark of 1983 to the present and hand him the Apple iPad. Over the past two days the amount of informal learning and instruction that I participated in because of and on this device is interesting. Over the past 48 hours simply ‘playing’ with this device I have learned more about gesturing on computers, read Mark Twain’s “A Connecticut Yankee in King Author’s Court” and conducted numerous informal sessions with individuals, including administration where I was able to preach the good word of instructional technology. I am not sure what affect the device has had on my learning, but it is hard to think there has been no affect.