Cloudworks: Social networking for learning design

Can we apply the best of Web 2.0 principles to an educational context? More specifically can we use this as a means of shifting teaching practice to a culture of sharing learning ideas and designs? This paper describes a new social networking site, Cloudworks, which aims to provide a mechanism for sharing, discussing and finding learning and teaching ideas and designs. We describe the development of the site and the key associated concepts, 'clouds' and 'cloudscapes'. We provide a summary of recent activities and plans for the future. We conclude by describing the underpinning theoretical perspectives we have drawn on in the development of the site and in particular the notion of 'social objects' in social networking and a framework for 'sociality' for transforming user practice online

The Medicare Physician Group Practice Demonstration: Lessons Learned on Improving Quality and Efficiency in Health Care

Discusses the experiences of ten large practices earning performance payments for improving the quality and cost-efficiency of health care delivered to Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries

Assuring Access to Care Under Health Reform: The Key Role of Workforce Policy

Examines policy and practical options for addressing the projected shortage of primary care physicians to ensure access to health care under expanded insurance coverage, including reorganizing practices to make productive use of nurses and other staff

Tutor Handbooks: Heuristic Texts for Negotiating Difference in a Globalized World

I would like to begin this article by telling a true story. When I was a graduate student earning my doctoral degree, I worked in a writing center on a midsized and predominantly white university campus. Every week I attended and sometimes facilitated the writing center’s tutor education workshop. At one of these meetings, an undergraduate tutor from a Euro- American background said that one of the things she liked about working at the writing center was that if she had a question about grammar during a conference with a client, she could simply lean over to the next table and ask another tutor for advice. In response to this statement, an African-American tutor said that she would never ask another tutor for grammar help because she felt that doing so would undermine her authority and lead clients to question her competence in Standard American English. At this point a bilingual Asian-American tutor said that clients often doubted her ability to tutor based solely on her appearance. For many of her American clients she was too foreign, while for many of her international clients she was not American enough. This discussion was a revelation for many of the Euro-American tutors, since it had never occurred to them that one’s physical appearance could bring his or her linguistic competence into question. All of the tutors learned a great deal from this remarkable discussion, and the theory and practice of the writing center shifted in ways that more fully accounted for the experiences of tutors from diverse backgrounds. I tell this story for two reasons.University Writing Cente

Impact of Service-Centric Computing on Business and Education

Service-centric computing is one of the new IT paradigms that are transforming the way corporations organize their information resources. However, research and teaching activities in the IS community are lagging behind the recent advances in the corporate world. This paper investigates the impact of service-centric computing on business and education. We first examine the transformative impacts of service-centric computing on business and education in the foreseeable future. Then, we discuss opportunities and challenges in new research directions and instructional innovations with respect to service-centric computing. We believe that this article will serve as a good starting point for our IS colleagues to explore this exciting and emerging area of research and teaching

Pedagogical innovation: Facilitating knowledge development in a multi-layered, blended-learning environment

This paper documents how a course originally designed to be delivered via traditional face-to-face methods and an additional distance-learning stream was redesigned to integrate both streams in a blended learning ‘classroom without walls’ virtual spaces environment. Discussed here are the formative feedback teaching elements and assessment methods utilised in the reshaped course, along with particular learning issues for transnational students. Addressed also for this new course model are the methods for moderating teaching and assessment practices to ensure fairness, equity, and compliance to university regulations. Tertiary learning and teaching is evolving through the use of innovative pedagogical practices utilizing social media, communication and information sharing technologies and virtual learning spaces. The use of online and blended learning approaches means that any student can be regarded as transnational in the sense they can learn in the culture and space of their choosing, at customized times to suit their lifestyle or availability. To support this choice, new courses must be constructed around learning flexibility in technology based virtual spaces; that is, classrooms without walls. In such settings, student centred learning can be facilitated through the use of technologies for engaging students in activities that have relevance to them, and encourage retention. Whatever the form of delivery, learning must involve reliable and equitable assessments to ensure that all students in virtual or classroom settings receive equal levels of formative feedback contextualised to the culture of learning found in their various international settings. This paper proposes that to cater for a mix of student learning styles, physical settings, and online technologies, a new multilayered approach to learning, called here ‘blended-blended’ learning can create success

Student-Centered Learning: Functional Requirements for Integrated Systems to Optimize Learning

The realities of the 21st-century learner require that schools and educators fundamentally change their practice. "Educators must produce college- and career-ready graduates that reflect the future these students will face. And, they must facilitate learning through means that align with the defining attributes of this generation of learners."Today, we know more than ever about how students learn, acknowledging that the process isn't the same for every student and doesn't remain the same for each individual, depending upon maturation and the content being learned. We know that students want to progress at a pace that allows them to master new concepts and skills, to access a variety of resources, to receive timely feedback on their progress, to demonstrate their knowledge in multiple ways and to get direction, support and feedback from—as well as collaborate with—experts, teachers, tutors and other students.The result is a growing demand for student-centered, transformative digital learning using competency education as an underpinning.iNACOL released this paper to illustrate the technical requirements and functionalities that learning management systems need to shift toward student-centered instructional models. This comprehensive framework will help districts and schools determine what systems to use and integrate as they being their journey toward student-centered learning, as well as how systems integration aligns with their organizational vision, educational goals and strategic plans.Educators can use this report to optimize student learning and promote innovation in their own student-centered learning environments. The report will help school leaders understand the complex technologies needed to optimize personalized learning and how to use data and analytics to improve practices, and can assist technology leaders in re-engineering systems to support the key nuances of student-centered learning

A Competency Based MSIS Curriculum

In response to the changing industry demands and increasing diversity of student needs when embarking on IS graduate studies, we determined that a fundamental redesign of the MSIS curriculum was necessary. We saw that the expanding IT universe now has more specialties than ever before while competitive forces simultaneously demand that firms keep costs under strict controls. Facing such pressures, firms demand more from IT professionals in the breadth and depth of their IT knowledge and skills coming from numerous knowledge domains. From these trends and issues we formulated the competency concept that forms the foundation for the new curriculum. A student earns a competency by completing four courses in a module. Now students can choose to pursue multiple competencies and can return to upgrade skills after graduation. We describe the process and issues we faced as well as the competency-based modular curriculum. We end with discussing the remaining issues that we are handling

Journey into the user experience: creating a library website that's not for librarians

Auckland University of Technology Library started work on a major redevelopment of its website in 2012. The problem was that the website content, as is the case for many library websites, had been written by librarians with almost no user input. The challenge was to redesign the website, rethinking our entire focus and placing the user at the centre of the process. This is the story of a journey of transformational change based on our user-centric approach. We believe we have achieved what we set out to do and created a website that’s built not for librarians but for users

When Failure Is Not an Option: Designing Competency-Based Pathways for Next Generation Learning

Proposes an online learning-assisted model in which students advance by demonstrating mastery of subjects based on clear, measurable objectives and meaningful assessments. Examines innovation drivers, challenges, and philanthropic opportunities