Higher education IT leaders from around the world will be converging in Philadelphia on October 18 -- 21, for EDUCAUSE 2011. One look at the conference program is all that it takes to conclude that “EDUCAUSE 2011 is the best thinking in higher education IT.”

With such a robust program this year, deciding which sessions to attend is harder than ever. Make sure to take in these sessions that showcase the use of video and collaboration technologies to transform teaching and learning and expand education opportunities:

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Tags: #EDU11, edtech, education, educause, higher education, ICT, IT, learning

We read a lot in education news about evaluating teacher performance, and I wrote a few months back about how telepresence could help with assessing and developing classroom leaders.

But what about the top school leaders? Education Week’s Christina Samuels wrote a recent article about the need for re-vamped evaluations of the people who manage the teachers: school principals.

According to Samuels, school districts struggle to design and implement effective principal evaluation systems. Today, most principals have annual reviews with district-level administrators, but these meetings do not serve to adequately assess the principals as instructional leaders, she writes. Samuels notes that Delaware has made some progress to improve evaluation procedures by developing a system that measures principals’ abilities to analyze school data and use it to set goals, as well as coach teachers to improve their practice. Read More »

Tags: Cisco, edchat, edtech, education reform, merit pay, teacher evaluation, TelePresence, video conferencing, videoconferencing

Tom Kalil, Deputy Director for Policy, Office of Science & Technology, leads a Digital Promise panel of educators and technologists.

“So Dr. Edwards, can you explain to the audience what’s behind the success you’ve had at Mooresville, in implementing technology that has so changed students lives?” The question was posed by Tom Kalil, Deputy Director for Policy in the Office of Science and Technology. Kalil was moderating a panel of distinguished educators and technologists – and the venue? A White House conference called on creating more access for technology in US K-12 schools.

I was not at all surprised to see Dr. Edwards on the White House stage on this beautiful fall day. In fact I saw all this coming when I first visited the tiny hamlet of Mooresville, North Carolina, back in April of this year. The more classrooms I was pulled into, the more kids I saw “leaning in”, the more the “buzz” reflected off the cinder hallway walls…the more I figured there was to the Mooresville story.

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Tags: 1to1, DOE, edtech, education, Mooresville, Obama, OST, White House

The Internet. Believe it or not, in Cisco’s 2011 Connected World Technology Report, 49% of college students and 47% of recently employed college students (many working in their first full-time jobs) said the Internet is “pretty close” to the level of importance of air, food, water and shelter.

A few other fascinating stats from the Connected World Technology Report:

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Tags: Cisco Connected World Technology Report, edchat, edtech, IVC, TelePresence, video conferencing, videoconferencing

If you were to walk into any school these days—whether an elementary, middle, or high school—you would see students using some degree of technology. Whether it’s a computer in a lab, a tablet, or an interactive whiteboard, technology has no doubt made its way into students’ schooldays.

The trend towards technology in education stands to proliferate: according to Education Week, the Obama administration and the U.S. Department of Education rank facilitating technology access as their top goal during tough economic times. With this goal in mind, telepresence should rank highly on the list of technologies designated for schools—after all, telepresence offers several solutions to maintaining education quality under ever-tightening budgets.

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Tags: edchat, edtech, education, Education Week, edweek, fieldtrips, TelePresence, video conferencing, videoconferencing