ELI Community Exchange

ELI Community Exchange is designed to facilitate the sharing of ideas and innovations among higher education professionals committed to advancing learning through IT innovation. ELI members contribute, collaborate, challenge, and investigate. Through ELI you'll find colleagues who are working on similar issues, and through the Community Exchange you can share ideas and explore common interests with them.

Volunteer for ELI Activities

Our members often express interest in getting more involved with ELI. To make that possible, ELI has launched its Volunteer Interest Form. Take a look and see if you might be interested in volunteering to help plan or support an ELI activity. Volunteer opportunities currently focus on the program committees for ELI events. However, additional opportunities will be made available as they are developed.

At this time, you must be a representative from an ELI member institution to volunteer for an ELI activity.

Share Your Innovations with the ELI Community

The EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative is always looking for innovative practices, technologies, and projects that expand the horizons of teaching, learning, and technology. If you have an innovation, please share it with ELI. We will review your contribution and explore how best to share it with the ELI community.

To submit your innovation for review, please use the ELI Innovations Contribution Form.

Tell Us What You Think (Member Polls)

We want to hear from you about issues important to the ELI community. Many organizations use Web site polls to track interest or opinions, and now the ELI site offers this feature, too. Look for quick polls on the left-hand side of our Web pages beneath the navigation menu. (Scroll to the top of the page to see our current poll.) They are designed to elicit member feedback on learning and technology topics, and the results will help ELI respond to our members' needs and interests.

Recent Poll Results on Preparing for "Life 2.0"

The ELI January-February 2008 Web poll asked members to consider the most important skills that students must develop to prepare them for “Life 2.0.” Critical thinking topped the list, selected by more than 85 percent of participants, while fewer than 15 percent of those polled selected discipline-specific writing, effective presentations and training in discipline-specific tools. The four most important skills needed for “Life 2.0,” according to respondents, were:

• Critical thinking
• Assessing online content and digital sources
• Team collaboration
• Thinking critically about legal and ethical issues on the Web

Digital media creation and expertise with emerging technologies and software tied as the fifth most important skill.

Past Poll Results

Learning Space Issues, August-September 2007

The results of the ELI August–September 2007 Web poll indicate a variety of technologies and approaches to learning are important when considering learning space design. However, a majority of the 51 respondents noted that their institution does not have a strategic plan for upgrading, implementing, or assessing learning spaces. For those whose institutions do assess learning spaces, the preferred strategies include student and faculty surveys and faculty focus groups. The top four characteristics respondents said were most desired in learning spaces are:

• Internet use during class
• Layouts that support small group discussion
• Projection of images while the room is illuminated, and
• Student laptop use during class

Characteristics tied for fifth include the capability to:

• Record what is written on the board for later use
• Customize the arrangement of furniture to suit class activities, and
• Easily integrate assistive technologies

Respondents listed the following technologies as most important for reaching their institution's instructional goals: wireless networks, image projection, laptops/tablets, video conferencing, and video streaming.

Net Savvy Issues, June-July 2007

Results of the ELI June–July 2007 Web poll indicate that institutions view their students' net savvy (information, digital, visual, and new-media literacy/fluency) as an important issue. A majority of the 68 survey participants responded that their campuses are discussing it. However, they noted that those conversations remain limited to certain parts of campus, and that only engaged individuals seem to be thinking about the issue.

Respondents identified the following as the top five topics under discussion at their institutions:

• Helping students find and use the best information resources
• Assessment of learning using digital, collaboration-driven technologies
• Legal and ethical policy issues
• Issues regarding online behavior and privacy
• Student production of multimedia for course projects, including training in software and visual expression

A majority of survey participants indicated their campuses have specific programs in place for three of these topics: helping students find and use the best information resources; assessment of learning using digital, collaboration-driven technologies; and student production of multimedia for course projects, including training in software and visual expression. However, less than 25% of respondents identified their institutions as having faculty programs on developing net savvy skills or using open Web tools (e.g., Facebook) for teaching and learning.

Student-Created Media, April-May 2007

Our April–May 2007 poll asked respondents to:

• Tell us whether the development and/or use of student-created media is supported at their institution.
• Describe the types of student-created media receiving institutional support.
• Indicate the ways in which their institution uses student-created media.
• Identify the disciplines at their institution assigning or supporting student media creation for academic purposes.

Poll results suggest development and/or use of student-created media is supported at most institutions. A majority of the 84 respondents indicated their institutions primarily use student-created media for assignments and authentic assessment, followed by campus-based media (news, Web, TV) and delivery of content. The top-five types of student-created media supported at their institutions include Web site design, digital photography, live-action video, blogging, and animation. For those identifying academic disciplines using student-created media, the majority reported arts/fine arts, followed closely by communications studies, education, and social sciences. It is interesting to note, though, that a wide variety of academic areas were identified, including medicine/nursing, business, English/literature, and the sciences.