I got to the session pretty early:

But it was nice because I got my computer online and was able to do a tiny amount of catching up. The session (and the next two I plan on attending) is just 15 minutes!

Emerging Technologies for Learning
Jeanette McDonald – session chair
Janet Shanedling, and Billie Wahlstrom – University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

• Talked a bit about generations.
• Talked about how to do emerging technology work you have to have support and an alliance with IT.
• Want to bring tech to meet student and teacher needs. Know that one size fits all won’t work and forces use won’t work.
• Choosing between a maze and a doorway: chose a portal solution.
  • For a number of reasons: too much information, hipaa
• Asked for student feedback on portal.
  • Wanted it when accepted, not when school starts. Can meet people in dorms, etc.
  • Customized views based on audience
• Human content providers
• Doing a lot of continual assessment
• This is a lot like WFU’s WIN, but with a lot more data: email, local news that might impact campus, courses, library, academics, career, finance, health, etc.
• Integrated social networking using Moodle
• Library has information for each department: librarian, databases, journals, if you have books checked out, your own database selection
• Used affinity strings to tie role, program, degree, unit, campus information into your own page
• Once they had a gateway, the question is what is it a gateway to?
• Platform is scaffolding for the academic side: course content, student services, student life, etc.
• Includes: faculty, instructional designer, course coordinator, librarian, graphic artists, videographers, etc.
• Used mouth-to-mouth marketing among faculty
• Digital campus goes public in December.
• Recommends that once you make content, put it out in every place you can think of. Youtube, website, etc.

This session had a lot of content. They could have used 30 minutes or an hour.