EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative’s “7 Things You Should Know About…” series
Contributed by Carol L. Smith, Assoc. CIO for Instructional & Learning Services
YouTube. . . Facebook. . . Google Earth. . . Social Bookmarking. . . Blogs and Wikis… Just a sampling of emerging (or once-emerging!) technologies that have offered opportunities for new ways of learning and teaching in higher education.
The EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative’s (ELI’s) 7 Things You Should Know About… series helps demystify these digital tools. Each two-page brief focuses on a single technology or practice and describes What it is, How it works, Where it is going, and Why it matters to teaching and learning. The series provides overviews of emerging technologies and related practices that have demonstrated or may demonstrate positive learning impacts.
A recent 7 Things You Should Know About… article focuses on Citizen Journalism, which refers to a wide range of activities in which everyday people contribute information or commentary about news events. As noted in the brief, “Citizen journalism encompasses content ranging from user-submitted reviews on a Web site about movies to wiki-based news. It forces contributors to think objectively, asking probing questions and working to understand the context — the kinds of activities that lead to deeper learning.”
Some of the other topics highlighted in the 7 Things You Should Know About… series include
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Twitter (an online application designed to let people describe what they are doing or thinking at a given moment in 140 characters or less)
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RSS ( a tool that enables you subscribe to online content using a “reader” or “aggregator”)
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Wikipedia You can find the complete list of topics at
www.educause.edu/7ThingsYouShouldKnowAboutSeries/7495.
About The Educause Learning Initiative (ELI):
The Educause Learning Initiative (ELI) http://www.educause.edu/eli) is a community of higher education institutions and organizations committed to advancing learning through information technology innovation.