nhays's blog

"The 3-D Printing Revolution: Dreams Made Real, One Layer at a Time," Rachel Ehrenberg, Science News 183 (5) (March 9, 2013)
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/348429/description/The_3-D_Printing_Revolution
Status report and backgrounder on 3-D printing: "Many herald 3-D printing as a game changer, a 'disruptive' technology that will turn traditional manufacturing on its head. But the technology is also at the peak of hype."

"Welcome to the Digital Public Library of America," Dan Cohen, DPLA blog post, April 18, 2013
http://dp.la/info/2013/04/18/message-from-the-executive-director/
Co-founder and DPLA Executive Director Cohen explains the launch of and goals for the new library, including planned development.

 By Rob Abel, Marwin Britto, Patrick Masson, and John Johnston

The growing emergence of digital devices, learning platforms, and applications promises easier access to a variety of content, increased productivity, and the realization of personalized learning environments. Unfortunately, it is a major challenge to use these rapidly emerging resources productively to meet students' diverse and increasingly demanding learning needs.

Daphne J. Hunt, University Web Administrator in the Office of Web Services at Tarleton University, recently shared an article she wrote summarizing a few of what she considers the best sessions of HEEMAC 2013. Thank you to Daphne for sharing her thoughts with those of us who did not attend this conference. Those who have done something similar for various conferences they attended have helped build a wonderful (but definitely distributed) resource for the community. (I know many conference attendees share their reactions -- thanks to all the contributors, whether posted articles, blog entries, or live tweeting through events.) I encourage you to follow Daphne's lead and share your thoughts about conferences and meetings you attend.

HEEMAC 2013 Review: Theories + Methods + Strategies = A Potentially Great App!

by Meg Stewart

“The world is changing. Our disciplines are changing. Our students are changing. But is higher education keeping pace?...For education to do better we cannot just keep doing the same things.” —Diana Oblinger

By David Underwood

"Are we going to do collage?" asked a large man in a blue jumpsuit and day-glo orange tennis shoes.

"No, I don't think we'll be doing any collage, at least not for now, Bob. Sorry."

It was the first day of my first class at the local county jail. I'd signed on as a volunteer graphic design instructor, and I knew there would be challenges. But putting a 290-pound student in a deep funk within the first five minutes of class was a bad start.

The EDUCAUSE editors pulled together some recent publications we found interesting or entertaining. Let us know what you think, and please do share your own recommendations.

This guest blog by talented author Dave Underwood takes a tongue-in-cheek look at what NOT to do when creating multimedia assignments for students. As a media consultant, he has worked with many faculty and students to help them become comfortable with the different technologies available for multimedia projects. For a great example of one such project, see his article with Cecilia Pang, Head of Performance at the University of Colorado Boulder. — The Editor

"I'm really frustrated. My prof wants me to make a meaningful image in Photoshop, but I don't know what he means by that. And I've never used Photoshop. Can't I do something meaningful without having to learn new software?"

Crowdsourcing! Co-creation! Curation! It seems as if everyone is trumpeting the "Cs" as the future of publishing and content. Not ones to be left behind, we’ve been thinking about using crowdsourcing to create content for EDUCAUSE Review Online. With such a creative, thoughtful, and knowledgeable community, crowdsourcing seems a great approach to collecting the "best of" any topic. Of course, the first challenge is how to narrow proposed topics to something specific enough to make it easy for people to participate. Our first attempt was using Twitter to solicit ideas on how to achieve college affordability for students. With many thanks to the people who had suggestions and the many more who retweeted the request, we received too few responses. Perhaps our topic was still overly broad?