Using iPhones on Campus, Learning in Second Life, Social Media in Higher Educaton, engaging the YouTube Generation in the classroom, are just a few examples of topics presented at the Educause Annual Conference, this year held in Orlando, Florida, USA, October 28-31. If interested in the new technological stuff and gadgets related to IT in higher education, this is the event, at least for Americans. The purpose of this review is to give an idea of some of the main topics at the conference.

 

Reviewed by Torgeir Skyttermoen, Assistant Professor and Project Manager at Lillehammer University College. E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Many institutions in higher education with considerable resources, take a lot of interest in technological investment and in developing IT in their study programmes both in an educational and in a logistical way. This was also reflected in the range of the topics at the conference. The Educause Annual Conference has been held every year since 1999, and with 9500 participants on the 2008 conference, it is a huge event. Given the choice of more than 200 sessions you have to make a selection and hence only get a small idea of what is new in the use of IT in higher education. This review will therefore only focus on a few of the sessions.

Second Life - Virtual World in Higher education

The session "Teaching and Learning in Second Life" held by the speakers Geoffrey B. Cain and John Miller from Tacoma Community College, presented an interesting demonstration of different ways in the use of a virtual world in higher education.

The presentation examined a specific teaching technique in virtual environments, particularly Second Life, and the speakers showed a live demonstration on how this online virtual world can be used as an opportunity to practice on important subjects in a nursing programme. The speakers presented how a second-year nursing program successfully can use "Second Life" to teach clinical procedures, critical thinking, and decision making.

Even though you might expect that usage of virtual worlds primarily addresses young people and the generation "born digital", this study programme is mainly dominated by students older than the average students, and with none or limited experience on the social web. The speakers reported that the lack of IT experience made no restriction to their ability or interest in using Second Life in their study programme.

For further demonstration view a video on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4J7-OlzLV0&feature=related. 

Social Media and Higher Education

 Sarah Robbins-Bell - a PhD Candidate at Ball State University and Director of Emerging Technologies, Kelley School of Business, Indiana University - has taken a lot of interest in virtual world as a tool in an educator's arsenal . But as she states in an article on the topic: "But using this tool requires a shift in thinking and an adjustment in pedagogical methods that will embrace the community, the fluid identity, and the participation—indeed, the increased conversation—that virtual spaces can provide", see more in her article "Higher Education as Virtual Conversation", Educause review September/October 2008.

Sara Robbins-Bell (or Intellagirl as she calls herself in Cyberspace) was a featured speaker on a session called "Social Media and Education: The Conflict Between Technology and Institutional Education, and the Future". In her talk she paid a lot of attention to the social medias and how this enforces a change in the framework for teaching in higher education. She suggested that educators should concentrate on bridging the gap between social media and educational institutions. Basically all communication is educational, and social media is a new kind of communication, Robbins-Bell stated. Social media creates new ways to learn within the communities and structures by institutions. And higher education institution should reckon that it "will not go away after awhile", and should instead take offensive steps to implement tools in their approach to reach the students where they are and put it in an educational setting.

It is not about investing in technology (CMS, LMS and so on) it is about using some of it as a part of education, she stated and continued to underline the importance of involving students and empower them through using technology and social media in educational settings. 

The educators should be prepared to deal with matters like: teaching students how to learn in an information economy, teaching students in the importance of contribution to a community, relating as more experienced co-creators rather than employees, serving as guides as students shape their own paths.

Maybe trying to give educators some sort of comfort Robbins-Bell concluded her session with the words: "In a world of Social media, educators are more important than ever...".

An European's Point of view - The conference in general

Educause that arranges the conference, is an American non-profit association which mission is to advance higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology and arrange several meetings and conferences on the topic. It also publishes additional material and resources, like Educause Quarterly and Educause Review.

Even though it claims to be an international conference, the Educause conference is highly dominated by Americans - both as participants, topics and in focus. Attending the conference for the first time you get the impression of being part of a big happy family since it seems common to be a regular participant. But at the same time being one among many, it is an enormous happening, given the large amount of attendants and the scale of the conference. Being in the States, you should not be surprised to observe that it also a significant element of commercialism, given both the focus on the sponsors and the large exhibition hall during the conference. For Europeans, the Online Educa in Berlin would be the closest comparison.

The main target group was Chief information/technology officers, Frontline technology practitioners, IT directors and managers, Campus administrators or similar positions. For researchers and teachers on the topics, the conference was interesting in order to get an idea of what is counted as new phenomena in the world of "IT and higher education", but only a few academic papers were presented.

Next annual conference will be held in Denver, Colorado November 3.-6. 2009. For further information, conference programme and session resources see: http://net.educause.edu/e08/