Changing patterns of Internet usage and challenges at colleges and universities

Increased enrollments, changing student expectations, and shifting patterns of Internet access and usage continue to generate resource and administrative challenges for colleges and universities. Computer center staff and college administrators must balance increased access demands, changing system loads, and system security within constrained resources.
To assess the changing academic computing environment, computer center directors from several geographic regions were asked to respond to an online questionnaire that assessed patterns of usage, resource allocation, policy formulation, and threats. Survey results were compared with data from a study conducted by the authors in 1999. The analysis includes changing patterns in Internet usage, access, and supervision. The paper also presents details of usage by institutional type and application as well as recommendations for more precise resource assessment by college administrators.

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[source: elearnopedia.com]

The Two-Punch Power of Weblogs in Education

Rather than focusing on a single tool, this piece will address a phenomenon which, for the example it sets, underscores the importance of new programs like BEAT. That phenomenon is both an idea and a set of tools known as personal Webpublishing -also known as weblogging, or blogging, after its most prominent form. Here, specifically, we will look at how weblogs are making an impacting on education.
By shortening and simplifying content publication and processing, personal Web publishing practices, like weblog authoring, content aggregation and syndication, and the formation of conversational networks, address a number of important needs of today’s learning environment. To keep things simple, here we will highlight just two -what might be called the two-punch power of weblogs in education.

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[source: incsub.org]