ID&T Today: EduCause 2012

Now THIS was a conference! Taking up the entire downtown Denver Convention Center complex, the 2012 EduCause proved it's worth among the places to be for technology events. Day One (actually the second day since I was unable to attend on Wednesday) was spent almost exclusively at the vendor fair. By the end of the day I had scored a working light saber, dancing robot, lighted pen, three t-shirts, and six bags of vanilla yogurt snack mix. Oh, and I also found solutions to several learning technology issues. Next year's conference is being held in Anaheim, home of the original Disneyland and the LA Angels.

Products

Laptops Anytime kiosk

Laptops Anytime offers a custom-built, self service kiosk for laptops and tablets. Students needing a laptop slide their ID card and select the type of device, whether PC or Mac. The laptop pops out of the kiosk, fully charged and installed with all software. When finished, the student returns the laptop by sliding it back into the kiosk. The kiosk also charges and reimages for the next user. This has definite possibilities for our student laptop project.

One of the neatest technologies was a product called weejot, a web-based application for easy development of mobile apps. Weejot offers several templates where you can drag and drop items with no app development experience needed. There is also an app development tool for those with development experience. This may fit in nicely with an initiative for expanding our presence in the mobile world.

TechSmith has really expanded their product line over the years. I'm a long-time and devoted Jing/Camtasia user. And their Camtasia Relay appears to be a possible solution to our lecture capture needs. They recently came out with a mobile app called Coaches Eye, a $4.99 tool for evaluating motion activities. For example, a physical therapist might fire up their iPhone or iPad (it's available for Android as well) and video the movements of a patient. The therapist reviews the video, using lines for annotating correct and incorrect postures and movements. The therapist then plays the video back to the patient for instant visual feedback. A similar product for motion analysis is Dartfish.

Sessions

Susan Grajek, VP for research and analytics at EduCause, featured a session on the top ten IT issues for 2012. IT directors chose the number one issue as being how to keep current with new skills and roles, and finding time for career development. Other issues mentioned included:

Supporting a BYOD (bring your own device) strategy;
Developing an institutional cloud computing strategy;
Analytics and its role in decision making.

The complete article, Top Ten IT Issues, 2012, is available on the EduCause website.

Julian Allen and Joe Horne from Georgia State discussed their iPad initiative and what they learned. GSU purchased iPads for a freshman learning community. Student assistants were used for much of the grunt work while IT focused on the inventory and storage systems. Computer carts were used for transport, storage, charging and reimaging. Interestingly, most of GSU's costs were associated with increasing network capacity rather than iPad costs. Old iPad 1's continue being used during registration, workshops and similar group activities not dependent on a robust device. They mentioned that getting faculty buy-in on such a project is key.

Edward Ayers, University of Richmond president, provided the closing keynote. He spoke of the need for using technology to it's fullest to understand the footprint that humans leave throughout history. I was a bit bored by the presentation until he displays data from Valley of the Shadow, a research project comparing Civil War from the viewpoints of Confederate and Union soldiers from specific cities. Ayers was one of two project leads during his tenure at the University of Virginia. The project provides a visual representation of big data, where the researcher can peel back layer upon layer and examine the most minute details of a project, or scale back for the big picture. He stated that humanists must continue examining technology to ensure it is being used at its full potential for the examination of the human record. The problem isn't technology but rather that researchers use too few of its capabilities.

Poster Sessions

Top Ten Things Students Do with Their Cell Phones
(excerpt from Beyond E-Textbooks: Writing Mobile Web Apps for the Liberal Arts)
Lisa B. Lewis, Ian MacInnes, Albion College