Innovative Uses for Educational Technology Funds? 232
RumGunner asks: "I
work for a university, and we have a special 'technology' fee that is
charged to students, intended to be used for focus on new technology of
direct benefit to students either in the classroom or related
educational/learning activities. Every semester there is a request for
proposals on how to spend this money, and for the most part these
proposals are fairly lackluster. Since I know there are a lot of .GOV and
.EDU readers on Slashdot, I'm curious to see if anyone has any good
ideas for large (or small) scale applications of new technology for the
benefit of students?"
Well, students will always abuse that... (Score:1, Interesting)
Multipule T3 (Score:2, Funny)
Campus-wide wireless? (Score:4, Interesting)
If you have enough money, you can cover the campus with wireless access. This would be good for schools that haven't already wired every dorm and every classroom with CAT5.
Re:Campus-wide wireless? (Score:2)
Re:Campus-wide wireless? (Score:2)
Re:Campus-wide wireless? (Score:1)
That's a lot considering that tuition has gone up 14.45% from last year (a 9% increase for fall and a 5% increase for spring).
Considering that there aren't any more sections of classes...I don't feel that I am getting my money's worth. This is what happens when you build prisons instead of putting the money into education. And they wonder why graduates leave Ohio...
-thedeacon
Re:Campus-wide wireless? (Score:1)
Re:Campus-wide wireless? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Campus-wide wireless? (Score:1)
Re:Campus-wide wireless? (Score:2)
Anyways, even if nobody breaks into any servers or intercepts any transmissions, they'll still have learned a good deal about the protocols and the fundamentals behind how the network/servers work.
Re:Campus-wide wireless? (Score:1)
I think they were IBM's "Most Wired Campus", which I would say in the case of wireless is a misnomer.
Re:Campus-wide wireless? (Score:1)
A better way to use funds would be to provide more help to students who don't have thier own computers. Like longer lab hours and more support staff, and better equipment there. That's my two cents (the rest of my money having gone to Oberlin, including "technology fee").
off the top of my head... (Score:5, Insightful)
2. Wireless networking (encrypted and/or MAC filtered) in libraries and public places
3. Wireless laptops, either for everyone or for "borrowing" perhaps at the library or other public places.
4. Intelligent routing to prevent the gnutella users from sucking up all the bandwidth. You can do this without entirely blocking the ports, thus letting it happen but preserving the bulk of the bandwidth for other (presumably more legitimate) uses.
5. Internet stations placed in public places for general email and web.
6. IMAP mail (including a Web client) if you currently use POP.
Re:off the top of my head... (Score:1)
For those living on campus the school's network is the only way to get broadband access. I can't say for sure, but I'm guessing most schools don't allow students to have DSL or cable installed in their dorm rooms. On top of that, don't schools with network running to each room figure that into the cost of living there? It seems generally unfair to penalize students who live on campus by restricting their internet access in anyway. Even more unfair at schools that require students to live on campus freshman year.
Re:off the top of my head... (Score:1)
We blocked the standard ports for the p2p clients and then issued a statement indicating that it was a temporary situation. Then we got to work on the "intelligent routing." Essentially we still allow these activities but there is a limit on the amount of total network bandwidth these activities can use. After setting this up, we reopened the ports.
I think it's a great solution to a very common problem on university campuses, and quite fair to everyone.
Bandwidth Costs (Score:1)
I do a ton of downloading and I would say around 80-90% of it is legitimate (I transfer a lot of legal ISOs), so I'm glad I haven't been affected.
Re:off the top of my head... (Score:3, Insightful)
For example, they are pushing Blackboard hard - just upgraded to the latest version which is much improved. The tricky part is getting faculty on board. Some jump on it, some don't have the time, and some just don't want to (very few) THe interesting part is that professors without course sites are being pressured by the students to get online. This is a good thing - its not that most faculty don't want to get online, they just don't necessarily see the advantage or if they do, aren't sure it's worth the effort or simply don't know whats involved.
To help with situations like this, we have a university wide division whose entire purpose is working to help join technology with education. They host seminars to help faculty and students take advantage of technology available to them, etc. Even with this valuale resource, it still can be a struggle to get the visibility needed to reach the right people. Blackboard wasn't that great in past years, but the new versions really work to integrate everything and provide the student a portal to their class info as well as developing communities for each class (discussion boards, document repositories, mailing lists, and even grades, practice exams, etc)
Wireless is a great thing. Our campus is deploying wireless quickly (our school finally got 100% coverage activated this month and a large part of the campus is covered), not just in dorms and educational spaces but in other places like the Quad, student center, etc. Now that the infrastructure is in place, the trick is using it. Many professors are wary of wireless in the classrooms (students surf the web during lectures) while other plan to embrace it. We're only now starting to work to get faculty to propose ideas for integrating wireless technology in teh classrom (say using PDAs and/or laptops to interact with the students, etc) Yes, there will be MUCH trial and error so it may seem like a waste of your money, but at least where I work, the intentions are clear - to use technology to improve the educational experience.
Email kiosks - another great idea. We're currently working to deploy clusters of kiosks in our common areas using Linux and Shuttle's tiny SV24 box. $750 including a 15" LCD screen and touchpad keyboard - and prices are dropping. We already have high powered clusters of Sun workstations, but they're in rooms that aren't always where the students congregate. Again, we'll trial it and if its successful, deploy more.
A lot of folks talk about requiring all students to get laptops - may work in some places, but I knwo we've just recently decided NOT to require them. 95% of our students already have computers, though not all are portable. ut forcing folks onto one platform would have caused too much of a backlash.
On area we are actively researching is the classrooms themselves. Is a PC in a podium with a projector enough? Probably not (though its better than projector slides - we've only got 2 lecture halls with LCD projectors though we have plans to upfit many more of our classrooms in the comin gfew years) Other ideas being tossed about? Laptop carts, interactive classrooms with desktop PCs at each seat tied into a central control console where professors can bring up student screens to some their work as an example (and yes ensure they aren't surfing porn), smartboards which capture notes in realtime and also in files for upload to the class website, etc. The trick is a) figureing out which works best (or perhaps which infrastruture works best with which class) And of course, providing the resources to the faculty so they can adapt their courses for the future. Of course the other fun part is the faculty that don't want to change. At one point whiteboards were put up in place of chalk blackboards - a number of faculty complained so much that the whiteboards are now gone and good old blackboards are back up.
So its not simple. Its going to take time. remember, educational institutions have limited budgets even when they charge special technical fees. As we all know, the HW is often cheap - the problem is hiring the people to integrate and run it.
Often the most formidable obstacle to all this is, surprise, communication. SOme folks may already have killer software and apps put together to adapt coursework to new technology, but if its not publicized in a way that others can take advantage of it, things stagnate.
Of course, this is all infrastructure. As you know, you can have a kick butt webserver, but you need CONTENT. If you spend $100K on retrofitting a classroom, it'll be useless until faculty have material that takes advantage of it and developing that material takes time. Sure, they can easily convert notes into Powerpoint slides - but thats no differnet than tossing premade transparencies onto an overhead - just more colorful. But imagine a class where the professor has interactive programs to demonstrate concepts, video clips showing phenomenon, feedback mechanisms where he/she can quiz the class on the current topic and based on their answers (push button a, b, c, or ,d), know if they are grasping it or if he/she needs to explain it further.
This sounds like pointy head boss speak - but see if your school has a committee or organization looking at technology in education. We do and it works well. Granted its not speedy, but they deal with a number of the pressing issues related to technology in education. Their minutes and discussion papers are posted monthly. But feedback is limited. So see whats already going on at your school and make suggestions - they may get acted on - you never know! I know for us, all teh feedback we get is from faculty, not students. We have a single student rep on the committee, but our site allows for student feedback - we don't get much. If you like or don't like something being done, find out who runs the program and let them know. Be professional, but explain why something is or isnt' working - its the only way they know somethings up so they can try to improve it (or drop it all together)
I know from where I sit, we're working on infrastructure. But the problem is classic chicken and egg. We don't have material already so we don't knwo what infrastrcture we need and we don't want to spend millions on the wrong type of equipment. So trial and error is the name of the game. Its slow, but hopefully we can identify the right mix and then push it out rapidly.
No, I didn't come up with lots of new ideas, but right now all we have time to worry about right now is infrastructure and limited trials. The good news is the administration is holding millions in reserve/placeholders to spend the money where we prove it will work best - so technical improvement in education will happen, but its not gonna be a Net speed!
smart podiums, blackboard, training... (Score:1)
I went out of my way to arrange training for the faculty who would be teaching in these labs. Most of them showed up, a few still don't get it. But for the board is used every single day, that much I know.
I think you mentioned Blackboard, too. We've been using it also and it's been great for us. We periodically arrange for 2-hour how-to sessions for faculty. Adoption of the system has positively exploded. Naturally there are plenty of faculty who will never use it, but as you say the students pressure them and we provide the training...so in the end more and more come to use it.
Re:off the top of my head... (Score:2)
LOL - That would boost our rankings! :) Seriously though, the University does have a streaming server already. Though its not used as much as it could be. As for the pub, nah, we have 'socials' (read kegger) every couple weeks at the engineering building - makes for a nice end to the week. Even we pointy head Administrators get invited :)
Re:off the top of my head... (Score:1)
** Terrabyte 'o Porn **
Re:off the top of my head... (Score:2)
1. online course materials via products like Blackboard (grades, tests, syllabi, lecture notes, discussions, etc)
Done.
2. Wireless networking (encrypted and/or MAC filtered) in libraries and public places
Done; and the wireless is in most campus buildings.
3. Wireless laptops, either for everyone or for "borrowing" perhaps at the library or other public places.
We have laptops to loan out, and students can get free wireless cards for their own laptops, so "done".
4. Intelligent routing to prevent the gnutella users from sucking up all the bandwidth. You can do this without entirely blocking the ports, thus letting it happen but preserving the bulk of the bandwidth for other (presumably more legitimate) uses.
We have a Packeteer shaper, so "done".
5. Internet stations placed in public places for general email and web.
That's been done for years already.
6. IMAP mail (including a Web client) if you currently use POP.
That's been done for a long time as well. What do we do now? In the midst of a buget crisis (Idaho State University [isu.edu]), we have spent a ton of money on technology. We are now installing these useless "smart boards" that came with state-of-the-art laptops that can copy the contents down (let me tell you, facutly are just lining up to take notes for their students [sarcasm]). It seems we may have too much money for technology? Is there nothing left?
We also just finished installing our first all-Linux lab for the computer science department (yay!). We could have spent more money if we had used Windows, I suppose...
wireless (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:wireless (Score:1)
at the school where i used to work on the network, one of the upper level (and some what ignorant) network admins jumped into wireless access. plan it out carefully first; he quickly saturated the main base station, and made all the computers using it attained ridiculously low speeds. due to this, the school heads (principals, etc; not network people) wrote off wireless access as a dead loss, and will not look into expanding it.
so in other words, be careful to make the wireless systems equal to the wired computers. the non-network people don't care how cool & tech it is, just how well it works. if our school had given it a fair chance, it would have been incredible. but they didn't give it that chance...
Network drives (Score:2, Insightful)
It would eliminate the need for floppies and such.
Well, maybe we're luddites (Score:1)
We have this (Score:1)
We use Northern's [northern.se] quota server [northern.se] to implement quota on Dell Windows 2000 Servers. However, Quota Server seems to buckle under the pressue with 5000 students per box. We have a lot of problems with quota being screwed up. I think around 3000 people per box is more of a sweet spot for this particular product. We have under 1500 staff/faculty per box and it has very few problems.
Re:We have this (Score:1)
Sure, it's not uncommon on
kinda hard.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Personally i study at a university and things that i would like to have improved are the amounts of terminals around campus to check email from.. Maybe somekinda thin-client/server system that allows you to access the uni-servers to check mail/news (slashdot
Also i doubt that very many universities have enough of they're lecture data on the web - which is really helpful. If the budget is large enough you could hire someone or a few persons to help the lecturers that arent so computer-literate to "digitize" lecture materials and extra material aswell as make good homepages for the courses with links to relevant sites etc. We have those on some of the courses and they are great! More of those would be really neat - preferrably from all courses.
... Just a few kind suggestions - please be gentle
Wireless network (Score:2, Informative)
Iowa State [iastate.edu] has just deployed a wireless network [iastate.edu] on campus. It's been a joy to use, especially with my iPAQ. Although the academic benefits are debatable, it's certainly nice to be able to check Slashdot and use messenger during a boring lecture.
The network is deployed [iastate.edu] in common meeting areas and in large lecture halls. I can't wait for spring so I can sit outside the library and check my email.
I'm sure there are some cool things that can be done with a lecture hall full of people with connected laptops...I'm just waiting for someone tell me.
Re:Wireless network (Score:1)
Database. (Score:5, Informative)
And have an open idea policy, especially amoung the computer students, so that they can impliment any enterprise solutions they can think of. And wireless, definatly wireless.
Re:Database. (Score:1)
However, the briding of the two really needs to be done and to be done seamlessly.
Scheduling / notes / etc. (Score:2)
Supposedly, PeopleSoft has a module specifically for educational institutions, but I've never seen it. I also know that there was work being done up at Harvard back in 1996 for basically what you said above. I have no idea what ever became of it.
As for getting students to use the system -- students have a 4 year turnover. You can get an over 95% compliance in 4 years just because they don't know what the old system was. Your problem lies in administration. And you can't have students do this work, due to restrictions by FERPA. It would have to be tightly controled by the Office of the Registrar or the equivalent office.
And as a person who was one of those students making enterprise solutions in the mid 1990s, I'd have to say that student run projects are bound to fail in the long run for larger instutions, due to the lack of documentation, and incorrect dependancies on legacy systems. Although students may make good programmers, major projects need to be led by full time personel who are directly responsible for the project.
(and as for wireless...my university was one of the test beds for Richochet in 1995. Damned nice system for $300/yr at the time... too bad they went under)
Little innovation right now + many lazy people = (Score:5, Insightful)
There's no new technology that will allow the students to learn more, faster, and have a higher comprehension.
There is, however, scant use of existing technology. Why aren't all syllabi online? Can't past lecture notes and sample tests be posted online? How come half the universities still make students stand in line to sign up for classes? Why do you have to wander around with a slip of paper to drop or add a class? How come so few classes are taught online? I'm not meaning real-time, but a learn-at-your-own-pace? People like me, who have jobs and families and no good University nearby, want to take extra classes, and have the money, but can't find anyplace reputable to offer the courses.
There's little innovation because most people don't get what to do with it, or they aren't willing to spend the time to do it. I know of 3 dozen professors who received grants to make their classes available online, and in the end, all they had was about 20 pages of static HTML pages, which were never updated, became stale, and then were removed from being online when the web server was upgraded.
I'll end this with the worst funding request I ever read (and you're going to read it all):
"Here's a list of the things we want. (You don't need anything more than this, do you?)"
Attached was an excel spreadsheet with items and prices.
Re:Little innovation right now + many lazy people (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Little innovation right now + many lazy people (Score:2, Interesting)
My wife's an accounting major at Davenport University, and she has plenty of online classes available. One of my coworkers is an IT major at the same school, and hasn't gone to a classroom for two years. I, however, am a CS major at Lawrence Tech. U., and it appears that the only class I could take online is "Technical and Professional Communications", which is required for all students. Even for that class, though, you still have to show up four times for presentations.
I think Eric (the IT major) still has to go to campus occasionally for administrative stuff, but otherwise he might as well be taking the classes from Hong Kong.
Re:Little innovation right now + many lazy people (Score:1)
top of the line innovation: (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd rather pay a small fee... (Score:2, Interesting)
- The school board turned down a request for a $100 budget allocation in order to buy more computer paper by the head of our school's computing department. Now, if you want to print anything, you need to bring your own paper.
- All computers in the school share a single ISDN line. At peak times, i.e. the only times that we're allowed to be in the media center, we get a throughput of about 5 bytes per second.
- Except for a few iMacs that were donated last year, all the computers are 486s with 8mb of memory, running win95.
- The school was awarded $100 per student for being an "A" school. There was a referendum among the faculty as to whether to spend 90% on bonuses and 10% on technology, or 100% on bonuses. I'll leave it to you to guess how that turned out.
Basically, at the high school level, technology is essentially a zero budget operation. I would MUCH rather pay an annual fee for the right to use the computers than put up with what we have now.
Re:top of the line innovation: (Score:1)
Not really ideas, but receptive staff (Score:3, Interesting)
The biggest ideas that I see coming up this year are requests for wireless access in student common areas, and increased funding for lab staff (so we can keep the brand new labs open longer). Hopefully this year we'll see the students submit more proposals, as the most we commonly see are requests from faculty and staff. (We divide the available funds into thirds, for IT, Academics, and Students--and the students section always comes up short with proposals.)
More Bandwidth! (Score:1)
All a college student wants is more bandwidth to download thier divx, mp3's, and warez. So do the right choice and invest in some dark fiber links!
Why not give the money back? (Score:3, Insightful)
If you have to ask on Slashdot on how you should spend the money then I can only imagine one of two situations. Either your technology infrastructure has everything you need out of it, or you/your staff are unable to see what it needs and you should find jobs you are more suited to.
If it is the former, then why not refund the money back to the students who paid it? As a current taxpayer and recent student I am sick and tired of the waste of my money that occurs in the system by people spending money whimsically on unneeded expenditures. I'm sure those of your students that are working hard to pay their way through school would agree with me.
I can only speak from a U.S.A. perspective, but schools and government both seem to suffer under the idea that they ought to spend our money not because they need it, but because they can. The thought that you need to look for blue sky projects to spend the money on just because you have it sickens me.
Re:Why not give the money back? (Score:1)
This is one of those areas that requires constant revision and reevaluation. It would be irresponsible to _not_ see what other universities and other people are doing, to see if anything can be learned by that.
If, at the end of a re-evaluation, it is discovered that there's nothing that would benefit students and instructors on which to spend money, then, perhaps, you can find a way to refund the money.
I am sorry that you are sickened by a person attempting to solicit ideas from the broader community on how to improve his campus. It seems to me just the thing a responsible administrator should do. Oftentimes, you don't know that you need something until you find it. When my undergraduate school put up the classes server (homebrewed WebCT/Blackboard-equivalent) four or five years ago, only two or three professors had any idea what to do with it. After the years of development, though, 70% of courses have materials there, and hundreds of students access them on a daily basis. Had no one looked around and said, "well, would it be worthwhile to explore this solution?" five years ago, the university would just now be trying to implement something, leaving it far behind its peers and without the infrastructure to meet the demand of students who like to have everything available on-line.
Having that consistent funding gives workers the flexibility to try new things and innovate.
Invest in open source (Score:5, Insightful)
Example: My college needed an emulator to teach assembly language to students, and I SOOO wanted them to have an undergrad build one and open source it.
ask the students (Score:2, Insightful)
Secondly, do research on whatever you decide to do, and then discuss it with the students in some way. My school attempted to implement a one laptop for every person policy-- until they announced it to the students. The students protested so loudly that the plan has since been put on the backburner, indefinately.
Laptops. (Score:1)
Now, I'm sure a large school could get a deal with dell/compaq/hp for say $800 - 4x$200. If the student leaves early, they either turn their laptop in or they pay the rest for it. Otherwise, it's theirs.
Re:Laptops. (Score:2, Informative)
First problem with your 'idea' is $800. Any laptop you're gonna get for $800 is not worth the effort currently. Second problem: Even if you get that $800 laptop now, it'll be well obsolete long before the end of that 4 years. Realistic laptop costs are still over $2000 for something worthwhile that will last long enough to be worth the trouble. Don't forget, you'll need to add infrastructure to support those laptops, either wireless or wired jacks somewhere, preferably many somewheres. Oh, and staff? Add at least one or two IT staff members to support those folks.
Now, if you're talking a public sector institution, you're likely going to also have to deal with a public bid situation for who gets to sell you the laptops. Better cut your specifications pretty tight, or you might end up with some fly-by-night vendor that can't support you. Even for major vendors, arrange spares on-hand, because overnight shipping frequently isn't, and students paying that kind of money for a laptop will get pissed in a hurry if they don't get to use it. Oh, and are you leasing, or purchasing? If leasing, is it a buyout lease, or Fair Market Value? We did a FMV, and found out that if we still wanted to buy them it would be $1000 per unit after two years. I don't think those units are still worth $1000. This issue only gets worse after 4 years.
I could come up with more, but that should at least give some idea of the problems faced when we went through this.
Re:Laptops. (Score:1)
At our school, the $100/semester is expicity towards equipping the computing centers in the University, and making sure that they have enough systems for everybody. The support staff is paid for by other monies.
Now, I'm not going to attempt to solve the "Low-bidder" or "Bad-spec" jobs-- these are completely different and impossible problems that happen any time money is spent. And as for "being obsolete" -- what does that matter? If a laptop is useless in 4 years, who care? Exactly what can you buy that will not be obsolete in 4 years?
And as for people and maintenance, I'm not saying that the University needs to run an exchange program, just have the students deal with the manufacturer and have a waranty. if they break it, they pay for the next one. No big deal.
Yes, there are problems, but it should be looked at as a solution, even if it means all the cushy IT people might have to have there hours cut.
think low-tech (Score:1)
I think it's important to remember that most students aren't interested in the cutting edge. They want stuff which just works. (This is why people use Windows and Macs.) Sure, you could give students a palm-sized Wifi-enabled device but then what? Too few students are nerdy enough to use it. Heck, a significant percentage of them don't even own their own computer and are very content to type their semiotics papers at a nearly computer cluster.
Perhaps a better use of the tech money would be something like recording lectures and posting them in a popular streaming-media format for later playing. This would be immediately accessible to everyone, not just those students who want to screw with SSIDs.
The point is this:
BEN
TWiki Web (Score:2, Interesting)
Spend it on people! (Score:5, Insightful)
At colleges and universities, hardware has a clear purpose: students need to do research and write papers. There's a very high demand for that, even if technology isn't playing a direct role in education. And even there, it's often the case that hardware-focused programs waste money.
But in K-12 education, this problem is huge. It's one of the many bitter jokes behind Microsoft's school donation proposal: you can't just plop a lot of hardware in the middle of a school and expect magic.
Guess what? Computers do not magically make learning happen. Students aren't going to get anything out of computers unless either (1) they have an engaged, tech-savvy teacher who finds ways to use computers effectively as a teaching tool, or (2) they have the opportunity to experiment on their own, without having the computers locked off, crippled, or kept off limits for unstructured learning. For hardware to be useful, students need available expertise and, above all, access.
So, I'd suggest spending tech dollars on people. I'm thinking mostly of K-12 here:
Re:Spend it on people! (Score:1)
As I was leaving high school, some self-seeking politician had decided to "put a computer in every classroom!" So they went through the trouble of doing just that... the result?
The sole use of this vast network was taking class attendance, and 80% of the teachers couldn't even accomplish that! The biggest problem in any network is the ignorance of its users - educate the users.
Go out and tell the people!
der_m
Re:Spend it on people! (Score:4, Insightful)
I applied several times to K-12 schools, large K-12 schools to be the sysadmin/netadmin/it/is guy. There are hundreds of offers out there and hundreds of jobs out there for this position, even right now they are there.. problem is that the schools want to pay about the same that McDonalds or burger King pay's for someone to say "you want fries with that?" but expect 15 years expierience (one I saw and made me die laughing said "requires 5 years expierience with windows 2000") and some even try to require BS or MS in computer science. and these positions are NEVER full time. they are 20 hrs a week part time so they can avoid giving you benifits.
the K-12 schools who have a clue hire a real fulltime person, or have an awesome CS teacher who does it, or even better, has a student run IT department...(yes dorothy it can happen and happen well) but they are very very rare.
Problem is that many teachers unions also BLOCK hiring of these tech people or impose insane restrictions.(and the salary is part of that too!)
Getting more people in the K-12 schools to manage the technology is great, it's an awesome idea. but it wont happen until you get state or federal mandates forcing the schools to put a person there. Because they would rather increase the coach's salary or spend it on new shiny sports gear instead of trying to actually educate the children.
Re:Spend it on people! (Score:4, Insightful)
K-12 schools are invariably on a completely unworkable budget. Thus the "bitter irony" of Microsoft's school donation plan, and so many other technology grants: how much good can it do to plop machines the middle of a school when the facilities are in disrepair, the administration is understaffed, the classes are large, and teachers are underpaid?
It's true, both K-12 schools and their donor often fail to understand the true costs of technology.
Problem is that many teachers unions also BLOCK hiring of these tech people or impose insane restrictions.(and the salary is part of that too!)
Thus the last item in my list -- "for heaven's sake, pay the teachers a decent salary". When the salary pool is way too small, there will be bitter battles over it, and you end up with these silly things that teachers' unions do. Have you ever heard of a programmers' union imposing a restriction like this on the salaries of sysadmins?
Re:Spend it on people! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Spend it on people! (Score:2, Insightful)
The main problem in universities is where computer support sits in their status hierarchy: At The Bottom. Definitely below the departmental secretaries, possibly above the janitors. In some departments, computer support was in fact done by certain janitors that volunteered to change the backup tapes, got root, and took over from there.
CS teaching and research is considered a cash cow, but their contribution is actually not taken seriously as part of "the life of the mind." The administration will gladly take half or more of the money they bring in, and would rather spend it on the campus landscraping than on the network infrastructure. The students and faculty demand better computers and better support, so what does the administration do? Levy another student fee to pay for it!
But where did that 50-60% in "administrative overhead" on grants and contracts that supposedly goes to pay for the infrastructure, including the, uh, network? Oh, into some pet project of some kiss-ass assistant dean of liberal somethingorother, as usual. Painting the Roses Red.
So now you have a shiny new pot of money to spend on computers. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. It will become yet another bone of contention for yet another round of stupid power games, and the person that gets stuck with making what's little left at the end of it all work--you know, the guy or gal at the bottom of their hierarchy of prestige and power--will get all the blame for all the delay caused by their power struggle and indecision, and will be caught in the middle of their stupid games.
The students, who have paid for it all, will get nothing, if anything, out of this as usual.
Except for those lovely expensive full-color glossy printed brochures put out by the the Wife Of Dean So-And-So working in the University of PR office describing, in extremely vague marketing terms, all of the benefits of the their selling out to Microsoft and accepting tons of M$ educational licenses for half price, the wonderful deal that she oh so sucksessfully negotiated -- when they could have gotten linux for free.
You can come up with all the creative ideas you want, but the above is what will actually happen.
Re:Spend it on people! (Score:2)
Well, politics are everywhere -- and working through or around them is always a part of getting reasonable things done. The politics of the public schools are especially, almost intractably, thorny since it's such a small pie of money and everyone has to share it.
But there are a lot of extraordinary people making the schools succeed in spite of this. I had some pretty amazing teachers in my K-12 years, who were succeeding in spite of so many things it makes my head spin. So fighting the good fight to get students and teachers involved with the technology is not a lost cause.
its the same here (Score:2)
Every quarter students here are charged a 'Student Technology Fee' on their tuition bill. This money is then dispensed by a committee of students, staff, and faculty towards educational technology projects.
Most of the money has gone towards building some excellent general-access computing labs for students. Our school has a glut of computers for student use--compared to others I've visited, there are no time limits, printing is cheap, and despite a growth in student body size most days you can come into the library and sit down at a computer.
In addition, there have been some 'questionable' purchases, in that exhorbitant amounts of cash have been funnelled into machines I wouldn't think are worth it. Examples are buying many of the mac g4 cubes instead of regular macs, along with those huge LCD displays. Don't get me wrong--I love the displays, but at the same time each one is the equivalent of 4 computers.
So in sum, if you want to spend student money on educational techology, BUILD MORE LABS! Spend the money the most efficient way possible in order to server the most students effectively. If your school has any need or projected need at all for more computing seats, give those your first priority. Going from a school where the labs were too small to the one I'm currently at demonstrated just how important--and NICE--it is to have close to enough seats to serve the student body.
Just my
Suggestions for use of the Techonology Fee (Score:1)
-Eyempack
Network backup service (Score:3, Interesting)
Other posters have suggested a file server so that people can access their files from anywhere in the university. I'd extend this by adding an automated backup and recovery system.
Make your daily/weekly/monthly backups as you normally would, but store the backups in a random-access form. Set up a web interface to allow people to browse the backed-up copies of their files and retrieve them.
It might sound like a small thing, but I've found many times that I'd like to look at an old version of a file, and I'm sure other students are no different; the point isn't so much to provide a backup service as it is to provide a file rollback service.
Re:Network backup service (Score:2)
I'm not sure about CVS here... most files are going to be binary (since word/excel/powerpoint are going to be the majority of the files). But even without CVS it isn't going to be hard; most useful things aren't hard.
??? (Score:4, Redundant)
Online Services (Score:3, Informative)
Aren't these classroom proposals? (Score:1)
The proposals are to be entertained from faculty, students, and teaching assistants; they are looking for new and innovative ways to use technology to promote learning. The budgets in question are usually a few thousand dollars per proposal.
For instance, say a biology professor has an idea to use a wireless network and bunch of PDAs to use out "in the field". Each plant in a greenhouse or out in a field has an identifier next to it; as students walk around the field they can learn about any plant they find interesting by using their PDA to immediately research it over the wireless network, either querying a remote database or accessing web pages.
money can be spend on bandwith (Score:1)
Little Things (Score:2, Insightful)
A few comments (Score:1)
Digressing a little bit, is there really a need to implement new technology? At least from what I've caught in the news, most of the stuff coming out these days are either upgrades to software schools should have anyways, or useless tacky crap (palm pilot update) that really is more suited for individual fetish than education as a whole. Web pages never being updated, annoying phones going off in class, perhaps money would be better spent showing people how to use the tools they already have instead of bringing in a truckload of more problems.
MP3s of all lectures. (Score:2, Insightful)
Why MP3 rather than video?
Simple: cost. You could take a tiny slice of the tech budget and wire every auditorium and classroom for sound, and serving the files is no big deal (96KBMP for voice sounds like a CD).
The problem which this leaves is blackboards / whiteboards. I'd suggest two possible solutions, in keeping with this low-tech approach.
1> Webcams which take a picture of the board every five or ten seconds.
(Pros: cool, cons: more complex, sync. with audio a problem).
2> One of those funky systems which record where your pen is on the whiteboard and produce gifs from that data.
Either solution is expensive, relative to sound, however, so mebbe the right thing to do is just to skip it.
In university (Score:1)
The first would be to hire someone full time that runs the web servers. I almost failed exams because they were down 4 of 5 days, and I needed some information from them. Its nice that they want to let students run the point and click windows environment, but it just isn't stable enough for their use.
The 2nd thing I'd love to see is more materials for the profs to use. Many will occassionally bring in their 486 notebooks and try to show us something with a projector from it. Of course they crash, and are awfully slow. All the content is also on their harddrive, and they have no wireless access. Each prof should be able to have a wireless network computer with them, and the projector to go along with it. Overheads are way outdated for the kind of applications engineering students use.
Of course, the dream is for the school to have notebooks for students. Our tution price is huge compared to the cost, and when we factor in our textbooks it might even be more benefical and cheaper to have just laptops for everyone. Many of our profs just wish everyone in class could have one, as it would really allow us to do things right.
My thoughts (Score:4, Insightful)
Here's a thought. Ask the students what they think their money should be spent on. :-)
Do's and Don'ts (Score:1, Informative)
Don't charge a technology fee, it just gives students one more thing to whine about. IT should be driven by an institutional needs basis so you can get the biggest bang for your buck. Those typically are more network storage space, more mail server space, online enrollment/course content, and reliable connections.
Wireless: Us tech geeks like to shout "wireless" as the solution to everything, but hardly anyone at the Univ Oklahoma used the wireless. Students would rather have a fast wired connection. If their dorms are not switched ethernet, you need to implement switching ASAP.
Email: Give everyone decent mail storage and access via a web client such as the free squirrel mail app (squirrelmail.org)
Network storage: We just installed a new raid array on our OSX servers which will give each student 100MB. Our next step is to get Samba and FTP up and running on those to allow access anywhere.
Online enrollment/course content: If your only new IT development is online enrollment, the students will appreciate you. My recommendation is that those developing this MUST get the tech support folks involved. Oklahoma didn't get the helpdesk people involved in the planning/development stages of their initial rollout. That resulted in thousands of questions that could have been negated by user-friendly prompts and error messages.
Off-campus connections: Don't even go there. It will be a huge waste of helpdesk resources and endless whining. No educational institution can hope to be a good dialup ISP, so don't try. Let those off-campus find a local provider. If you have a technology fee, off-campus users will EXPECT a free dialup. One more reason to get rid of the technology fee.
EUEF (Score:1)
They've got a list of everywhere the money has gone since it was brought in. You might get some ideas there.
Put content on-line (Score:1)
What do you need (all of the following elements have to be fullfilled):
-Support from teaching staff: they must want it.
-Software to run this (you can buy it, create it yourself or use open source software).
-You need support for the software
-You need advice about creating on-line courses (You could just put the syllabus on-line, but then you're not creating on-line courses).
-You need someone who will keep the courses up to date.
-You need someone who will answer questions relating to the on-line courses.
The combination of all te preceding elements are quite costly if you are serious about it.
But then again you could simplify stuff a lot and just offer a combination of a forum / a file sharing environment/ e-mail listing.
Tech Fees. (Score:4, Interesting)
I work for one too. We also charge a technology fee. It goes straight into the general fund, never to be seen by the IT department.
This seems pretty common -- most of the colleges I've heard of use the tech fee as something to raise rather than tuition. There's lot of those; Death of a Thousand Cuts to keep the paper tuition low.
--saint
Educate the educators (Score:2, Insightful)
What is the point of constantly spending money to buy software and hardware that no one will know how to use. Take some time and set up seminars on how to better use the existing infrastructure. Educate the proffesors on how to make the best use of the technology at their disposal.
I am all for spending money to upgrade and expand the technology used on campus, but make sure people know how to use it and will use it before adding more unused resources.
i know... (Score:2, Funny)
spend the money upgrading all the machines to the latest version of windows! i think xp only costs $500 per license, but you could probably still exaust all your funds by paying microsoft.
my friends are really right. microsoft just "get's the job done." i mean really, if we were installing linux, we'd still have truckloads of money unspent. waste is the silent killer...
Humanities projects: a sample and an idea (Score:1)
Strong projects using existing technology will exploit the network's ability to deliver to, and collect from, anywhere. For instance, your older faculty in archaeology, Classics, Religious Studies, etc. probably have thousands of excellent slides under their own copyright that they really hope will not disappear after they retire. A local, web-based catalogue of these would be a treasure-trove to new faculty and might even be a selling point in the increasingly competitive market for academics.
Student activity (Score:1)
As I've written before, the biggest danger is the indescriminate use of technology to just do what was done before but now with technology. Most of the extant course management tools (WebCT, Blackboard, etc) have this focus. For more innovative approaches, check out lon-capa (lon-capa.org) or learnloop (learnloop.org).
New (optical) mice in labs!!! (Score:2, Interesting)
Other suggestions:
Improve Documentation: One of the biggest questions at CS-OSU was, "How do I get an X session?"
Improve network infrastructure: This can always be improved.
Improve WebCT/remote learning: WebCT/Remote learning tools typically need improvement. Usually, the biggest problem is not the software but the Teachers who are unfamiliar with it but required to teach course through it. Student aids for these teachers are not always adequate.
Wireless: This may be a bit much, but the students would love it if you could get it working.
Subsidized/Discounted Software: At OSU we had the Buckeye Bundle. It included every MS product (any OS, any Office, Studio) for $100. We also had a Software to Go website where we could download some stuff like SSH for free. This was very popular with me and my friends.
White Trash (Score:1)
I don't think any school should buy machines for every incoming student, but some sort of program tied into the financial aid office whereby us less-than-priviliged kids (and especially those of us who really need a decent machine, like computer scientists
Also my school built something called the Wildnet [colorado.edu]- which is also a nifty idea.
Re:White Trash (Score:1)
Re:White Trash (Score:2)
Interoperable Tools and Systems (Score:2, Insightful)
Forget Blackboard, Use Manhattan (Score:2, Informative)
EdNet (Score:1)
Weave's guide to spending Ed Tech monies (Score:3, Insightful)
There is nothing more important than providing a platform for University and politicians to come together to pat each other on the back and show off. Therefore, all proposals must meet this primary objective. If it fills a room up, all the better.
Therefore, Weave's the good and the bad list for spending ed tech money.
THE BAD
THE GOOD
I hope this helps. p.s. This is just a theoretical exercise. My employer is, of course, far more enlightened on these matters...
Best use: REFUND THE FEE! (Score:1)
-B
amazing new tech (Score:2)
Then take some berries or blood. Dip a pointy stick into it, and scratch out the same characters that come up onto your screen when you use a keyboard.
The technology is amazing. It is 100% portable, and usable without batteries or electricity of any kind (although using at night does require an accessory light). In addition, they never, ever, ever become obsolete. If I understand correctly, there are no licenses, so when finished, you can hand the treepulp with blood scratchings to the next set of students.
Now, it is somewhat fragile, and is flammable. But it survives being dropped off of a desk MUCH better than a laptop. Even better than those toughbooks.
The user interface is pure simplicity. No keyboard or mouse. You simply take a stack of this treepulp, and place it in sequential order. Then physically move the 'pages' back and forth to get to the desired 'page'.
And, here is the truly insane part: they are cheap. For the same $899 that you may spend on a computer that will be destroyed and obsolete in a few years, you can literally buy thousands of these treepulp stacks.
The support costs are almost zero. You need a box or 'treepulp shelf' to store them on, and you need some climate control (not as rigorous as that needed for computers, BTW), but that is it. No network admin, no support contracts, no licensing agreements.
I know it sounds like this must be vaporware, but I have actually seen them for sale in stores. Maybe it is just an east coast thing, but I have a feeling that these will really take off.
Distance Ed. (Score:2)
You can check it out here. [ncsu.edu]
Anyway, this is a big deal to me. I'm 28, a parent, and I'm married. It would be very hard on me and my family to go back to school now. With this program I'm able to get a comp sci master's degree without taking away from my income or family time (I do the work after my two year old goes to bed.)
In addition to that, on campus students are able to make up classes or watch critical sections twice. The school makes money on VBEE (video based engineering education) students even though they are charged less because they don't use the same assets. They make even more money when they reuse the lectures. (A lecture is good for about 18 months in comp sci.)
Anyway, on campus students benefit, the school benefits, and VBEE students benefit. It's not cheap. To do it right you need a camera man, you need to mic every student, you need streaming realplayer servers, you need good presentation monitors in the room, etc. Production quality matters. However, it's enabled me to get a masters (I'm almost done) and learn *a lot*. It's improved my career and my life.
Here is what my school did with $4/credit fees (Score:2, Interesting)
Mimio cheap whiteboard transcribers (Score:2)
I think there's also some competitor in the $300 range.
Re:Mimio cheap whiteboard transcribers (Score:2)
At one point in time I also developed a very rudimentary driver written in perl which is available here [fxweb.com]. Very rough around the edges, but it's a start.
Some redundant suggestions... (Score:2)
- One of my math professors puts all his lectures and notes on the web in PDF/JPEG format AND Quicktime videos.
He uses Apple software for this (I'm sure there are alternatives) and it's an incredible help in the complex subjects he teaches: Algorithms, Graph Theory, Mathematical Logic, etc.
I'm sure not all classes would benefit from the idea, but mathematical courses and some of the more complex computer science courses definitely would.
- A "related papers" database linking research papers to each lecture in each course.
Sure, any interested student can google their way to one of the public databases, and any teacher with the time can put the links in his website (if he has one).
But having this process automated would make it easier for both students and teachers, and would allow other things: cumulative links independent from website changes, automatically sharing of links between professors, accepting submissions from students (at least graduate students), and maybe attached commentaries for each link ("a la Slashdot", without the Trolls).
- Some of my professors use egroups to share information between the students. This is a ridiculously easy/cheap way to get the students to discuss assignments and topics outside the classroom and provide them with files, links, whatever might be of their interest without interrupting lectures.
- Burn everything you can (lectures, videoconferencies, software, books, tutorials, etc) into CD-ROMs for the public library. Not everyone has access to a high-speed connection, or can spend all day in the university using the labs. This should be automated and independent of each professor.
- Internet kiosks everywhere are always a good idea.
Don't go too fancy... (Score:3, Informative)
However, I have some ideas as well...
Another fee to students? (Score:3, Interesting)
Of all the additional things that educational institutions are dinging students for these days, I think imposing a "technology fee" is disgusting.
Any fees for research should come from government, industry, and other organizations. The students should contribute to technology innvoation through their *work*, their *research*, their projects, and such. Not through a "fee".
I know about inflation, but my University (which I gruaduated from in 10 years ago), is now charging *three* times what I paid for tuition. This is just wrong that higher education is becoming more and more exclusive. Things like this fee are just plain wrong, especially if they're having trouble finding what to do with it.
Instead, they should encourage projects where interested students put their time and effort in, above and beyond, doing technologically interesting projects. People who are interested will do the world. Those who are ridden with apathy, won't be involved, and wont' care. No big loss.
-me
Wonderboy what is the source of your power? (Score:2)
access access access (Score:2, Interesting)
Laptop checkouts (IceBooks == sweet!)
Connectivity (wireless is great, but a chicken in every pot, or rather a RJ-45 at every library table or booth is excellent)
Multimedia (ahh, buzzword! I know, but having a dedicated lab with dual quicksilvers (733? can't remember), copius amounts of macromedia/adobe software and both weekly tutorials AND classes willing to use the stuff makes for happy students who are blending the ol' liberal arts with some more technical skills)
Bandwidth is an important one, but doing it properly is key. As has been suggested, smart routing to keep the filesharing users from taking all the bandwidth, but without shutting them down, is key
-jon
Re:Linux workstations! (Score:1)
Re:At my school (Score:2)
The only thing you should be spending money on, is bandwidth, and terminals to access it... oh and food, and pr0n