How will academic libraries make sure that their content is available on a 3.5-inch mobile device? Should this even be a goal of the academic library?

This week the NYTimes wrote about the rapid growth of reading platforms, and reading, on cellphones and other mobile platforms. In "Cellphone Apps Challenge the Rise of E-Readers" we learned that there are 84 million smartphones and 50 million iPhones and iPod Touches that can run reading applications. In comparison, analysts expect that we will have ~4 million dedicated reading devices in the market by the end of 2009.

While firm numbers are hard to come by, it appears that a significant number of people prefer to consume at least some of their reading on a mobile device. This reading is mostly done at "in-between" times, while on coffee breaks, waiting in lines, sitting on the bus etc. I'm currently reading the Kindle version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo on my iPod Touch ($6 at Amazon).

Whatever reading our students are doing on mobile devices, we can be pretty sure it is not academic or curricular reading. It seems to me that libraries have made a mistake in trying to have physical e-reading devices available for checkout, rather then having the digital file available that students (and faculty and staff) can check-out to the mobile devices that they already own.

We can easily glimpse a future where members of our academic community will prefer to have the option of interacting with content on mobile devices. Nicholas Carr touches on this phenomenon in his NYTimes piece "The Price of Free", writing: "As screens proliferate and shrink, and as the Web allows us to view whatever we want whenever we want, we spend more time watching video alone." I think the key phrases here is "proliferate and shrink" and "whatever we want whenever we want".

When we get to a point that a mobile version is expected of whatever content we want to interact with, not having a mobile version may cut-off the desire to consume that content. People who teach courses, and those of us who also work with people who design and teach courses, need to recognize that we are more likely to succeed in having our students engage with the curricular content if our students can access this content on a platform that they choose. Students are amongst the busiest people on earth. Perhaps they will be more likely to read an assigned chapter if they can grab some snippets during those "in-between" times on their mobile device. Later they can crawl up for extended times with the paper book, or on an e-reader, the point is to offer choice.

I think that there is a fear of "catering" too much to our students. I often hear that we should not try to meet their every need and whim. I disagree. In an age where students have choice - on which institutions to attend, which classes to sign-up for, and where to invest their time - we should endeavor to make our offerings as relevant to their needs as possible. If having curriculum available on mobile devices increases the amount of reading done then I'm all for working towards making this a reality.

Once we get over the philosophical question - should we be working to mobilize our collections and curriculum? - then the next question becomes one of how to do this. This is an area where I think our leadership in academic technology, academic libraries, and our professional organizations needs to get engaged. How can we organize to figure out the proper incentives for the Amazon's, the Barnes & Noble's, Google, the publishers etc. to offer digital book subscriptions to academic libraries that can work on mobile devices? Are there schools that are already working to make their academic library collections and curriculum available in mobile file formats? Can we envision a time when our academic libraries provide a similar experience to the Kindle bookstore? Is anyone out there already doing this?

Brad Stone has an interesting piece "The Argument for Free Classes via iTunes" in today NYTimes. He reports that iTunesU now has ~250,000 individual classes available for download and that other platforms like YouTube.edu are experiencing dramatic growth.

Across our campuses a vigorous debate is taking place about if and how we can make our learning materials and educational product available and open to the world. A small but growing cadre of educators are eager to join the movement to participate in sharing educational resources. Some see this as an opportunity to reach out to prospective students and alumni, others believe that we have a moral requirement to participate in spreading learning as widely as possible. All of us closely follow and admire the success of institutions like M.I.T with their OpenCourseWare (OCW) initiative, as well as other schools programs such Open Yale Courses and Carnegie Mellon's Open Learning Initiative.

I'd like to argue that the models provided by M.I.T., Yale and Carnegie Mellon are only one sort of example that could be followed, and that increasingly all institutions of higher learning will have the opportunity and choice to support individual instructors in their desire to make their learning open. The big change is the introduction of coming ubiquity of lecture capture systems. Platforms such at Techsmith Relay, Echo 360, and Tegrity currently allow (or will soon allow) recorded lectures to be published directly to iTunesU or YouTube.edu. We are very close to a point where individual instructors will be able to make the choice for themselves if they want to share their lectures and learning material with the world.

This will be a big change, because learning content that originates in our institutions will now begin to be widely and freely shared to the world without the institution providing the primary sponsorship for this activity. The M.I.T., Yale and Carnegie Mellon open learning initiatives are all examples of top-down organization and strategic positioning. By pairing lecture capture systems and free public media platforms such as iTunesU and YouTube.edu faculty will be making their own decisions about what, when and how to share their materials. Lecture capture systems that were originally purchased to meet a pressing a institutional need to provide enrolled students with recorded lectures (as a large body of evidence supports this as a learning tool and students are increasingly demanding this service) will begin to be turned tools for open learning.

I don't think we have quite recognized how quickly the quantity of open learning content will begin to grow as lecture capture systems are adopted, nor have we fully thought through the policy implications and communication opportunities tied to this trend. But I do hope that those of us who work in academic technology do whatever we can do to allow our instructors to have the choice and the option to share their classes with the world.

What do you think? Do you see the spread of lecture capture systems as an important component in the open learning story? Do you have any examples where this is occurring on your campus? Do you think the lecture capture companies will start positioning their products as a part of the open learning revolution?

I'm going home

And when I want to go home, I'm going mobile

Well I'm gonna find a home on wheels, see how it feels,

Goin' mobile

Keep me moving

--The Who - Going Mobile from Who's Next 1971.

EDUCAUSE - go mobile!

First the good news:

The People: Both Steve Worona and Gerry Bayne are masters at the mediums of the webinar and the podcast.

EDUCAUSE Podcasts: 37 pages of educational technology podcast goodness. Subscribe on iTunes. Follow on Twitter.

The EDUCAUSE Mobile Site: Wonderful to have a mobile version of our EDUCAUSE 09 conference schedule. Appreciate being able to read EDUCAUSE Quarterly and Review through my mobile browser.

Next steps?:

Mobilize EDUCAUSE Live:

I love these Webinars. If you want to see the form at its best go and check out Richard Katz's 11/13 Tower and the Cloud presentation in the archive. The problem is that the number of great presentations in the archive exceeds the time available to view them. What I want to be able to do is to download the presentation to my iPod Touch (as I do with TED talks). Having all the Webinars archived on my mobile device would allow me to view in small chunks and during in-between times. I understand that Adobe Connect Pro does not have an MP4 output (unless I'm wrong), but that should not stand in your way. You could record the presentation using a screen recorder like Screenflow to produce the file.

Create iPhone / Android Apps:

My model for a great NYTimes iPhone App. The app design and usability are excellent, and it syncs to allow offline reading. The sync feature means that it is very fast to navigate the content. Both EDUCAUSE Quarterly and Review need a full fledged app.

The conference schedule and scheduler could also move to a full-featured iPhone and Android application. Let's stop once and for all printing out the paper conference schedule.

Mobile Conference Presentation Recordings:

Lots of great EDUCAUSE 09 conference presentations available in streaming format, most of which I will never get to watch because I can't download them to my iPod Touch. There are is simply too much competing for my attention when I'm on my computer to watch full streaming presentations. I need to be able to do what I do with TED talks, download and watch in chunks during spare moments.

What am I missing? What did I get wrong?

I just finished an excellent book called The Fourth Star: Four Generals and the Epic Struggle for the Future of the United States Army. I believe that the experience of the generals profiled in this book can teach us in academia a great deal about how the culture of large and tradition bound institutions can be transformed.

In order to effectively fight in Iraq these generals, particularly David Patraeus, needed to reverse the deeply held traditional Army doctrine of force protection and overwhelming kinetic warfare. In its place, Petraeus was able to instill counter-insurgency tactics that emphasized protecting the population and co-opting former insurgents to create the security necessary to build institutions.

As a learning technologist working for a private college I have very little contact with military people and institutions. I know little about the armed forces academies and colleges, beyond that they have a reputation for extreme academic rigor and are known for producing some of our highest quality postsecondary graduates.

I have no idea how the armed forces utilize learning technology in their institutions of higher learning. I have an inkling that a great number of active duty personnel and veterans utilize online learning, but I have never worked directly with this population.

I've come to believe that my ignorance about our military is a problem. Beyond the embarrassing fact that I don't personally know anybody who has served and sacrificed in our nation's wars over the past 6 years, and have a poor understanding of military educational institutions, I think that I am missing an opportunity to learn about cultures and how they transform themselves.

In higher education we are engaged in a cultural shift. One that puts the learner at the center of the construction and delivery of education, a process that is catalyzed by technology. We are living through a transition from a scarcity of educational materials and knowledge to an abundance. We are working to redesign our institutions, programs and courses to meet the needs of a new set learners, as well as to open up higher education to groups that have traditionally been closed out.

How can we make connections and build relationships with members of our military who also work in education? At EDUCAUSE I did not see any presentations by people from armed forces academies or institutions (did I miss them?). I'm not sure how to make these connections. How can we learn from the larger experience of transformation in the military to help us manage our own transformations?

Below are 4 books that I read in the past couple years on the U.S. military. Any recommendations for other books would be appreciated.

• The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008
• Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq
• Hog Pilots, Blue Water Grunts: The American Military in the Air, at Sea, and on the Ground
• Imperial Grunts: On the Ground with the American Military, from Mongolia to the Philippines to Iraq and Beyond

Twitter is changing how I keep up with the educational technology world. I'm moving from relying on an RSS reader (I use Google Reader) to relying on Twitter subscriptions and hashtags. For the first time I'm wondering if Google should be worried about their core business model, as if my experience is any guide on how we use the Web to understand the world, may be moving away from search and more towards microblogging Twitter clients (I use Twhirl by Seesmic).

At EDUCAUSE 09 Twitter was much debated (go watch the fabulous Campbell/Maas point/counterpoint) and extravagantly utilized for sharing and communication (see the #EDUCAUSE09 transcript). I'm pretty certain that Course Management Systems will start to build in Twitter capabilities and that hashtags will automatically be generated for each course. Tweeting will become a standard way for students and instructors to share information, thoughts and links around the course material. Many instructors will become comfortable incorporating and leveraging a Twitter-enabled backchannel to both in-class and out-of-class communication.

Scanning the educational technology news stream via a Twitter client vs. relying on an RSS reader means that I look at content that has been recommended by a person. The learning technology community is small enough that I can pretty quickly begin to filter by reputation. If one person consistently links to material that I find useful and interesting then I'm more likely to click on her links. Rather then going to particular blogs, or presentations, or videos, or articles based on the title or site (as I do with an RSS reader), I go because of a colleague's recommendation.

This is a big change, and I'm still getting my head around this shift. My apologies for all those folks like Clay Shriky (and perhaps) you who understood (and blogged about) the implications of microblogging and social media a long time ago. I feel like I'm sort of coming late to this bandwagon. My conversion to information gathering by Twitter client has me wondering about the need to explore this method in course design, faculty training, and student information literacy. I want to learn more about this (so I'm nominating Shirky to keynote EDUCAUSE 2010!).

The hashtags I follow on Twitter include: #highered, #edtech, #educause, #educause09, #blackboard, #onlinelearning, #audible, #moodle. Am I missing some crucial edtech hashtags?

Among the key learning technology news sources I follow on Twitter are: IHEtech, InsideHigherEd, wiredcampus, iheinsider, educause, and educauseELI. Are there other publications, reporters or organizations that I should be following?

The ed. tech companies that I follow on Twitter include: audible_com, Blackboard, TechSmith, TechSmithEDU, pearsonls, Microsoft_EDU, and Moodlerooms. Which ed. tech. companies do you follow on Twitter?

Finally I follow about 50 people in the learning technology community. Mostly folks that I've met through reading their blogs or blog comments, at conferences or through their publications. I'm sure I'm missing many key voices, would like to hear how you build your ed. tech. Twitter lists.

Is Twitter changing how you keep up with our field? Do you think that there is a larger story here about how we find, consume and share information?

Three cheers for the educators at Syracuse and UW Madison for refusing to purchase new Kindle's until the speech-to-text feature meets accessibility standards. It is beyond stupid that Amazon neglected to provide spoken menu options, therefore making it impossible for sight impaired readers to access the speech to text feature.

All colleges and universities, and libraries (and all of us consumers) should follow the lead of these institutions and refuse to purchase e-readers until they are fully accessible. This is, as they say in our business, a "teachable moment."

Amazon has a wonderful opportunity to make lemonade from lemons, and leverage the attention it getting about accessibility to make a positive and significant contribution towards opening up reading for all readers. Amazon should bring out a college library Audible initiative. Accessible speech-to-text for e-readers is essential, but the experience of a machine generated voice remains a poor substitute to the spoken word. Providing higher ed libraries the means to lend Audible audiobooks would immediately make large number of books accessible, as well provide another medium that all learners (students, faculty, staff) could consume books.

The fact that the e-reader boycott is getting so much press demonstrates the power of our higher ed institutions to advocate for companies to change their products and policies. How can we get similar momentum built up around providing audiobooks for loan?

When it comes to advocating for audiobooks to be included in academic library collections I'll admit to some strong vested interests. I'm a huge audiobook fanatic. Too much of my money goes to Amazon to pay for my Audible platinum membership. Almost all my nonfiction reading is done via audiobook. The genius of audiobooks is that they allow reading while doing other things. Reading while driving, reading while doing the dishes, reading while walking across campus. Are you an audiobook fanatic as well? My Audible reading list can be found here - I'd love to see what you are reading (and why can't Amazon/Audible provide social space for passionate readers to meet up, exchange reviews and recommendations?).

So my plea for college/university libraries and Amazon to to get together to offer an audiobook program is entirely self-interested. But it would also make good learning and business sense. How many of our students are shut out from reading for accessibility or learning style reasons? How many students would benefit from being able to get course reading done while multitasking (riding on a campus shuttle, running on a treadmill, walking between classes)?

Can some enlighten me as to why Audible does not have a college library program? (Or is there a program that I can't track down?).

I've long thought that the academic librarian worry about Google's book digitization effort is misplaced, and the real worry should be about the dominance that Amazon has in the digital book world. It is great that Amazon is finally getting some competition in the e-reader business, but I worry that their control of the audiobook market through Amazon will stifle the kind of innovations and partnership with libraries that I'm suggesting.

Both Amazon and academic libraries need to develop the next generation of book readers (and I mean people who read, not e-readers). I'd bet that a large number of college students would be more likely to read if an audio option was offered. If Amazon does not provide this generation with the opportunity to fall in love with books through audio then they may loose the next generation of readers and book buyers. Providing audiobooks for check-out is an example where, by working together, Amazon and academic libraries can both increase overall reading and make their collections accessible to all learners.

How can we get audiobooks into our academic library collections? How can we insure that these audiobooks work on the devices that students already have (ie iPods), and are not restricted in file format or DRM to players that only a few students possess? How can we support and encourage the trend for academic libraries to invest in digital and audiobooks in the same way they invest in paper copies? And how can we push to get Amazon on board to create an academic library program?

Money has been much on my mind in recent days.

We are all thinking about our work in terms of a new normal when it comes to available resources. Times of fiscal constraint can create opportunities for learning technologies to bring new efficiencies and savings. For instance, moving more learning, collaboration and communication tools to cloud-based consumer services can accomplish twin goals of saving money and increasing relevancy. We should favor campus technology tools and platforms that students choose to utilize on their own, are comfortable with once they are on campus, and will want to use once they leave. The good news is that consumer, cloud-based tools are often cheap - and these days cheap is a good thing.

But sometimes we can't use the consumer tools. Sometimes we need enterprise tools that are centrally managed by campus I.T.

So one thing I'd like to see more is great transparency and discussion around the costs of centrally managed, enterprise level learning technology platforms. This transparency should start on the vendor web sites. One thing I respect about what TechSmith does is that it puts pricing for Camtasia Relay, its presentation/lecture capture system, on the Web in an easy to find area. Go look.

Is pricing as simple and transparent for all the players in the lecture capture market? I'm hoping that someone who works at all the lecture capture companies will provide the links (and the navigation necessary) to their pricing on their websites. I'm not trying to pick on lecture capture companies. In my experience, it is rare for all pricing, maintenance charges, and other costs to be explicitly spelled out on the Web pages of educational technology companies. Is this your experience as well? (I'd love to hear about counter examples). Maybe someone who works on the sales side of educational technology could enlighten us about how pricing communication works, and why companies seem reluctant to share this information on their sites.

When talking about money transparency we shouldn't stop with the companies. At EDUCAUSE I heard lots of talk about different platforms and solutions, but seldom did people put dollar figures on their systems. I don't know about you, but I'm always curious. Perhaps it is not thought of as polite to talk about how much systems costs. Or perhaps pricing contracts are under NDA - I don't know. The result is that we don't talk enough about dollars. Should we?

Should campus I.T. units make public the costs of enterprise system licensing? Should the costs of the LMS vs. the SIS be put up on our pages so members of our community can understand where the dollars go? I'm honestly not sure about how this should work, and curious about the pros and cons of this approach. Does anyone do this? How transparent are institutions about the costs for their learning technology tools and platforms?

Can we talk about money?

I saw on Twitter that Jim Collins did not grant permission for his EDUCAUSE keynote "Good to Great and the Social Sectors" to be recorded and and displayed. Do a Twitter search for "Collins #educause09". This is in contrast to Lessig's talk, which is available on both the conference streaming site and
blip.tv.

If the Collins talk is indeed not going to be available for viewing on the public Web then this is a troubling development.

EDUCAUSE should be taking the lead in providing access to the conference materials to as many learners and educators as possible. The model of open learning and sharing is one that many members of EDUCAUSE are advocating for on our campuses. We look to EDUCAUSE as both a resource and an example of best practices.

I hope that going forward it is a requirement of all EDUCAUSE speakers that they agree to have their talks shared with the world.

Actually....I'd like to go further.

I'd like to see all EDUCAUSE presentations be loaded up to the YouTube EDU channel (for searching) and a downloadable copy be made available as well. I end up watching lots of TED talks on my iPod Touch - EDUCAUSE should provide the same opportunity.

In fact, I think EDUCAUSE should go TED one better, and provide an "opt-in" sign-up for speaker to all allow their talks and presentations to be mashed-up and reposted. I bet most presenters would love it if their talks were mashed up (I know I would), and an opt-in policy would protect those who would rather not have their work altered.

Streaming the EDUCAUSE talks with Silverlight through the mediasite player provides a gorgeous experience, my hope is that this is retained while also allowing wider distribution, downloading, and mashing.

What do you think?

Can someone help me understand the aggression of ed. tech companies on the EDUCAUSE vendor floor and their passivity in the blogosphere and social media environment?

Why is it that I could not walk from one end of the vendor floor to another without being assaulted by offers to sit in on a presentation, have a deep conversation about a product or service and the future of education, or receive some SWAG - yet we continue to have very few examples of people who work for ed. tech companies authentically and actively engaging in online debates and conversations?

My brain does not respond well to come-ons on the vendor floor. I don't want to have a conversation with someone I don't know. I don't want to sit for a presentation that may take more time then I have, and may not contain the information that I need. I don't want any crap to lug home on the airplane. But what I do want is to have conversations with people I already know. Conversations with people I've met through their blog, or on twitter, or who have responded to my blog. I like these conversations because I know and like these people. I understand what their background is and where their passions lie. They have explained what their company is all about and why they get up early each morning and stay late at night to play a part in building their company. I have engaged with these people, and I want them to succeed.

Why is it the ed. tech. companies are so willing to spend all those dollars to rent a big booth in a prime location, then transport, house and feed so many employees to staff the conference booth, all the while absorb all the work not being done at the home office - and at the same time fail to carve out time, incentives, or policies to get these same people in to the online conversation?

Some recommendations to ed. tech. companies to extend the vendor floor:

1. Relationships: Recognize that face-to-face conversations, whether at conferences on the vendor floor or during campus visits or webinars, will be much more productive if a relationship has already been established. Schools don't get to know companies, people who work for schools get to know people who work for companies. The blogosphere and the social media space are essential opportunities to begin and grow these relationships.

2. Leadership: The leadership and management of ed. tech. companies must make it a priority to set-up incentives, policy, and time for all members of your organization to participate in the online discussion.

Incentives: The leadership and key managers need to set the tone by either starting a blog themselves or actively participating in the comments of existing blogs. This can also include tweeting posts you find particularly relevant. Participating in the social media conversation around the goals of the companies product/services should be promoted as an important aspect of building a professional career within the field and the company. Anyone working for and ed. tech. company should be able to find opportunities to engage in conversations and debates, to make arguments based on evidence, and to demonstrate strong levels of social intelligence in order to build relationships.

Policy: Develop a written policy for participation in online conversations around education and technology. This policy should be as progressive and liberal as possible, encouraging members of your organization to feel empowered to represent your company, make critical comments about your companies policy (but not the people), and develop arguments for where they think we should all go in the future. Make sure your people know that they will make mistakes and say things that will piss people off, but that is okay as long their is a willingness to learn from these mistakes. Offer training opportunities for effective online communication, advocacy and relationship building. Make sure that everyone in the organization is equally empowered to have a voice online.

Time: The biggest reason I here that people who work work for ed. tech. companies don't start blogs, or contribute actively to existing blogs, is a shortage of time. Participating in the online conversation should be budgeted into regular work - it should not be seen as an extra. If a company is going to reward people for participating (incentives), and develop clear policy and training for effective participation in online conversations then it is necessary to provide people the time. Just as time is scheduled on the vendor floor time can also be scheduled and allotted for the social media floor.

3. Authenticity: Finally, it is critical that participation in the social media conversation around educational technology be authentic. This requires a willingness for companies to move beyond the rhetoric that "our people make the difference" to actually empowering your people with the training, autonomy, authority, incentives and time to actively participate. If your companies core values are shared by your staff then their will be no reason to worry about editing or approving their voices. Make sure that you provide a place on your companies sites that link to your people's blogs and profiles. Create easy channels for follow-up conversations. Giving everyone in your company a place in the online conversation, one that is supported and honored, will be your best sales, retention and recruitment tool. The danger if you do not engage in these activities is that colleges and universities (and other customers) will bypass the for-profit culture and decide to invest their resources and time in community driven, open-source projects.

Questions:

Seems like their is a great business waiting to be born to help companies and their employees participate effectively in the read/write Web. Another site I'd love to see is one that tracked, like Google Analytics, all the participation of ed. tech. employees and all the conversation around ed. tech. issues in one place. Does anyone know of any business or site currently doing this?

Can anyone point to examples of companies in the ed. tech. space that understand the upside of empowering their employees to participate in the conversation?

Any ideas about why ed. tech. companies and their employees seem slow to join the conversation? Does this diagnoses of the current state of affairs ring true to you?

Dear EDUCAUSE 2010 Program Committee:

Before I jump into brainstorming about future conferences, I think the 2009 Program Committee members and the EDUCAUSE team members deserve a huge round of applause for putting on such an amazing conference in Denver! I'm amazed at how smoothly the conference ran, how engaging the keynotes were, and how much support was offered to presenters. The amount of hard work and dedication necessary to put on a huge event like the EDUCAUSE annual conference boggles the mind....thank you to everyone who worked so hard.

Some ideas as you prepare for the Anaheim CA. 10/12 to 10/15 annual conference:

1. Suggested Theme: Towards Open Learning and Transparent Institutions

Inspired by Lessig's 2009 talk "It Is About Time: Getting Our Values Around Copyright Right," EDUCAUSE begins a year long effort to promote open learning and transparency in higher education. EDUCAUSE start-up funding and expertise are offered to institutions working toward moving course content to the public Web under Creative Commons license. Major research and support efforts are launched around open learning goals, with support and partnerships from key EDUCAUSE sponsors. Conference tracks, presentations, and conference awards highlight and celebrate institutional and vendor efforts towards supporting openness and transparency.

The EDUCAUSE 2010 Program Committee insures that the conference reflects and amplifies the goals of openness and transparency by placing all of the conference materials, sessions, and videos and the public Web.

2. Suggested Keynote Speakers:

Day 1: Chris Anderson (editor-in-chief Wired). Talk: Free and the Future of Higher Education.

Day 2: Jeff Bezos (CEO Amazon.com): Talk: Lessons for Higher Education from Amazon: Thriving In An Age of Disruption.

3. Suggested Social Media Innovations:

A. EDUCAUSE creates a social media editor assigned to track, collate, aggregate, synthesize, communicate, discuss and editorialize on all social media conversations. Dedicated page aggregates news reports, blog posts, tweets, and status updates related to EDUCAUSE 10. Page allows for community ranking of stories, posts, tweets (EDUCAUSE DIGG), with social media editor providing value added commentary.

B. Each session is automatically assigned a #hashtag that also publishes to #educause10.

C. Opt-in location tracking applications for smart phones is distributed to support real-time tracking and reporting of session attendance.

4. Suggested Innovations Towards Openness and Transparency:

A. Conference presentations slide deck voice-overs are pre-recorded and posted on EDUCAUSE and consumer video / social media sites. This innovation allows for live presentations to be limited <=20 minutes, with structured time for questions and debate built into each session.

B. Every session is recorded using presentation/lecture capture software. Each session is posted for public viewing/comment on YouTube EDU.

C. The default session room chair arrangement is changed from rows to circles. Session room design, pre-recorded talks, pre-session discussions, projected session tweets, and time limits on one-way presentations (18 minutes) mirror an active learning pedagogy.

5. Your Ideas:

What do you think should be the theme for future EDUCAUSE conferences? Who would you like to see as keynote speakers? What social media innovations would you suggest? How could the sessions reflect the active learning techniques for courses that we are trying to promote on our campuses? How could EDUCAUSE contribute to the open learning movement? How can we get past the divide of educators and vendors at the conference and recognize that all attendees are working equally and collaboratively to leverage technology to challenge the status quo in higher education?

Each year I try to make sense of the conference in my own brain, picking out the major themes and actionable pieces of intelligence that I can bring back to campus. Can anyone point us to blogs that we should be reading that summarize, synthesize and evaluate EDUCAUSE 09?