BlogU

  • Themes to Watch at EDUCAUSE 09

    By Joshua Kim November 1, 2009 8:18 pm

    EDUCAUSE 08 was the conference of the cloud and the looming budget crisis. I'm wondering what new narrative will emerge after this week in Denver.

    Some contenders (and I'm looking forward to hearing your candidates):

    1. The Back Channel Triumphant: Looking at the action on #educause09 offers clues to how attendees will tweet the conference. When will we hit a tipping point where the majority of conference related conversation moves to the digital world? Maybe some will estimate this and give a presentation in 2010. And what does all this micro blogging and macro blogging and Facebooking tell us about learning and collaborating at our own institutions? I think you know the answer to that one.

    2. Publisher Dreams: No industry has blown the opportunities presented by digital academia (ubiquitous fast networks, online applications, 100% student computer penetration etc. etc.) more then the publishers. If the 3 big publishers have a strategy beyond slapping web sites on to textbooks or creating half-baked course cartridges (and then charging students prices that would make Tony Soprano blush) then I'm all ears. Why the publishers did not buy into the LMS market years ago (yes, I know about Pearson and eCollege) in any significant way I'll never understand. What could publishers do to remain relevant in an era of abundant content, digital curriculum, e-books, and a realization by educators that better courses mean less content and more student collaboration and authoring? No clue. I hope that Pearson has the goods. I doubt it. Check out this tweet from Pearson on 10/29: "Just a few days until our huge announcement at #EDUCAUSE! Press briefing at 9:30 am on 11/4, Room 407 at Convention Center #EDUCAUSE09

    3. Moodle Love: I predict that a bus load of decision makes will leave Denver determined to make the switch to Moodle. They will have heard good things, will feel confident that there is both an established user community and a stable vendor ecosystem, will run the numbers and be ready to make the jump. I hope that Blackboard understands just how critical it is that they flood the zone with people who can have authentic conversations with as many existing customers as possible in Denver. And by authentic, I mean a willingness to share the roadmap and offer full transparency around the development and support resources available. I think Blackboard does have a compelling value proposition - but I think the company has done a poor job of communicating this proposition to the community. Blackboard needs to get in this conversation, or the rate of Moodle defections will be faster then past performance would predict.

    4. The SIS Gets Ambitious: Student Information Systems (SIS) - think Datatel, Banner, PeopleSoft (Oracle) get lots of the money but almost none of the glory. The SIS is essential. The LMS would be pretty useless it integrated with the SIS. So why can't the SIS bypass the LMS by offering core functionality (grade book, testing, drop/add etc.) and a rich set of integration points for the Web 2.0 social learning tools (blogs, wikis, social networks etc.) that everyone wants to use anyway? Or simply bake Moodle deeply into the SIS, and offer both under one contract? Why should schools buy and support two systems when one will work better?

    5. Techsmith Gets the Buzz: I predict that this year's most buzzed about vendor will be Techsmith, owing to its simple and affordable lecture capture and authoring tool Camtasia Relay. Owing to H1N1, the motivation to have lecture capture solutions in place has moved from a want to a need. The lecture capture market is fragmented and competitive, but only Techsmith offers a solution that is inexpensive enough to scale and simple enough to easily roll-out. Expect the Techsmith booth to be over run. (Full disclosure, I'm managing the Techsmith Relay roll-out on my campus, so I'm a bit biased).

    What do you expect to be the meta-stories coming out of EDUCAUSE 09?

    Will the stories of the cloud (possibilities) and the recession (just depressing) be replaced by something new, or will these twin narratives continue to dominate?

    Which vendor do you expect to break out?

    Which sessions and/or featured speakers will surprise and delight us?

    And will the Wi-Fi network be robust enough to deal with all the tweeting?

    See you all in Denver.

Go to comments (9) »
Advertisement
On the Job Market Together?

Comments on Themes to Watch at EDUCAUSE 09

  • Expected Narrative
  • Posted by bevo , Department of Skepticism on November 2, 2009 at 7:45am EST

  • The narrative I expect from this year's conference: the continued lack of critical thinking about technology's role in learning.

    I expected IT department heads to continue their long standing tradition of hailing every piece of technology as improving test scores, motivating students, and grading papers faster. I expect renewed calls for more money, more people, and more servers.

    I don't expect anyone to question the efficiency or the effectiveness of such allocations.

  • Posted by Thomas on November 2, 2009 at 11:45am EST

  • Re conferences moving online -- they already seem obsolete to me. The original manifest purpose of conferences was to learn about the latest research before it was published. Now digital comm can take care of that. The only real remaining reasons for conferencing face-to-face are the latent purposes -- networking, partying, etc.

  • Content?
  • Posted by Thomas on November 2, 2009 at 11:45am EST

  • "a realization by educators that better courses mean less content and more student collaboration and authoring"

    Beautiful point. However, I'm not entirely happy with saying less "content". I'm not sure just yet how to reconceptualize and restate "content", because I think there is still an inventory of concepts and skills that we want students to master in each course.

  • Posted by Thomas on November 2, 2009 at 12:00pm EST

  • re #4 -- holy smokes, what a concept! Why haven't these companies already realized that they could kill BB and steal its base?

  • Datatel Offers Colleague and Moodle Integration
  • Posted by Wayne Bovier , Senior Product Manager at Datatel Inc. on November 2, 2009 at 5:15pm EST

  • Regarding Point #4: At Datatel, we've been planning and building a full teaching and learning solution for higher education for much of this year and publically announced this in mid October. Our solution fully integrates our Colleague enterprise resource planning solution with Moodle, and our exclusive partnership with Moodlerooms, a leading Moodle service provider, assures our clients that they will have the full expertise, support and commitment they have come to expect from Datatel. As a highlight, we will support tight integration between these two systems in forms of grades, class registration/creation, retention alerts... among other key integration points. Please come by our booth at EDUCAUSE for more information we would be happy to tell you much more.

  • Posted by Thomas on November 3, 2009 at 12:45pm EST

  • If you built in a gradebook and assessment features, you wouldn't even need Moodle.

  • want twitter field - are other SIS's connecting to Moodle?
  • Posted by Joshua Kim at Dartmouth College on November 3, 2009 at 8:45pm EST

  • Thomas, Bevo - everyone else.....where can I find your thinking on the Web (blogs, Twitter etc.)

    Note to Scott at InsideHigherED - the comments function should include space for a Twitter handle and blog entry.....I know I'd follow everyone who commented and bring the conversation forward.

    Wayne...thanks for the info on Datatel...I'll definitely check that out here at EDUCAUSE. What other SIS providers are doing something similar?

  • Posted by Catherine Lynch on November 3, 2009 at 11:45pm EST

  • This publication reported this week that SunGard has teamed up with Epsilen to offer Epsilen's eLearning platform, integrated into its SIS, to its customer base. This came on the heels of the Datatel/Moodlerooms partnership, and right before Educause. Campus Management announced at Educause two years ago that it would provide Moodle with its SIS, and has deployed that solution at many of its client schools.

  • Posted by Thomas on November 4, 2009 at 12:00pm EST

  • Integrating SIS with a proprietary LMS is entirely missing the point that Joshua is making (I think). The LMS is almost obsolete, save for the assessment-gradebook function tied back to SIS.

Print
© Copyright 2009 Inside Higher Ed