Ocotillo Emerging Learning Technologies

iCampus Presentation Materials

For those who attended or were interested in the presentation made May 25, 2005 by Phil Long when he presented on the MIT iCampus project, we have copies of his Powerpoint show... it is rather huge and with the videos, not feasible to post online, but we can make copies of it available on CD-ROM. Just contact Alan Levine.

For more project URLs, see the event information at http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/ocotillo/rsvp/index.php?id=117

We will by trying to set up a new web site and/or other collaborative tools for those interested in the iCampus projects.

ASU's New Decision Theater - Internet2 in Action

Ron Bleed (CIO of MCCD), Darrel Huish (Assistant Vice Chancellor of IT at Maricopa), Phil Long from MIT, and I visited ASU's new Decision Theater on May 26. This world-class facility is for science-based, informed analysis to help the community and policy makers visualize the future through alternate scenarios. Located in the Brickyard in downtown Tempe, the Decision Theater provides immersive experience using a 270-degree rear projection screen with seating for up to 20 people. The Decision Theater is part of the New American University by creating a facility for bringing policy makers and decision makers together to address challenging problems in a unique, visualization environment. The infrastructure includes advanced network applications using Internet2 technologies. To schedule tours, contact Judy Hall at (480) 965 4098.

MIT's Phil Long Visits Maricopa

Phil Long, the Senior Strategist for Academic Computing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, provided a presentation to approximately 45 Maricopans on MIT Campus Outreach projects. The presentation took place on Wednesday, May 25 in the Governing Board Room. Phil provided an exciting demo of free technology being made available to us from MIT. The MIT iCampus Outreach Project () is seeking to share specific technologies created there (virtual labs, online interactive applications, TabletPC tools, and more) with the rest of the world, much like their Open CourseWare Initiative is providing free access to MIT course content. The tools Phil demoed were: * Magic Paper, a Tablet PC application for dynamically creating models of systems in Physics * iMOAT: MIT Online Assessment Tool is a collaborative effort with other colleges and universities to create a nationally accessible Web service, to facilitate the assessment of the actual set of writing skills that students will need both in college and in their professional careers. * Technology Enabled Active Learning (TEAL) has revamped the way introductory science classes are taught at MIT. Animations and simulations were incorporated into course materials to help students visualize and understand fields the complex interactions inherent in electromagnetism. * xTutor is a toolkit for building online computer programming courses * iLabs are a series of real world experiments that are controlled remotely via the web. This provides students access to machinery and technologies not readily available. See MIT's iCampus site for more detail on these and more available projects. We have set up an agreement to collaborate with MIT on generating some experimentation with these tools.

Jim Patterson and His Final ELT Blog for 2004-2005!

Jim Patterson ELT Blog Finale for 2004-2005!

Wow, what a year. Roger Yohe of Estrella Mountain Community College and I visited 7 campuses and one group listening to Maricopans talk about what technologies they were using and ones they thought were on the horizon. We had well over 200 participants at the Ocotillo Retreat at South Mountain. I enjoyed meeting many of you at my Camtasia Flash movie demo on Free and Inexpensive Tools for Online Learning, based on a presentation I did at the TechKnowledge 2005 ASTD conference in Las Vegas last February. Roger and ASU co-hosted the Internet II show in April, and there will be more on that in the future!

Dr. Larry Johnson of New Media Consortium was great during the lunch session, wasn’t he? Roger and I had a thrill presenting again with him that afternoon.

This summer Roger and I will be pouring over the data Ocotillo participants gave us on what sort of direction they’d like emerging learning technologies to take in the 2005-2006 year. We will also be reviewing the latest Horizon report Larry talked about and the Educause report on technology.

I am personally kicking around some ideas about a show for Maricopans on wireless challenges for learning. I am also very interested in looking at webcasting systems and what is going on with other colleges and what we can learn from them.

Here’s to a great summer!

Jim Patterson
Jim.patterson@pvmail.maricopa.edu