Talk:Research Question One
From Horizon Project
In working through the ranking exercise I found myself wanting to qualify and contextualize my ranking votes. I suspect we all have this sense when trying to make these rankings. However, there is more to my unease than just being uncomfortable with being forced to make some decisions. The main reaction is that there is a dimension that needs to be considered - what do we mean by 'learning focused institutions should be using'? I tend to consider the 'should be using' to imply that it's something the institution should implement. However, I think there is a real question here about what when and in what context should institutions of higher education implement a new educational technology and when should we consider leveraging the tools that are available from the outside the institution (from commercial or non-profit sources)?
This is not just a resources question. Consider the most common group communication tools blogs and wikis. The reality is, at least at MIT, the majority of students have blogs from 'elsewhere' and when considering their use at MIT prefer to use their own. We have tried to build a blogging service for teaching but the majority of students still prefer to use their blogs. This isn't too dissimilar to students' preference to use their own laptops rather than a computer lab machine when given the choice. The problem arises when you consider the content from a blog or wiki. There are concerns of privacy. There are questions about academic work that is hosted outside the responsibiltiy of the IS organization of the college/university - (will it remain accessible, avaiilable, and unaltered?
It seems like I've traveled far afield from the original question. However, when ranking the technologies that should be used by an forward thinking higher ed institution, are we saying, by our rankings that higher ed institutions should implement the ranked technologies? Or, are we saying they should work to insure they are accessible to their students, either by simply surveying the options for insuring there is 'sufficient' access (including commerical or other 'external' offerings), negotiating with commercial services (e.g., discuss with Flickr a higher education verison that we might be able to install locally to provide more granular access control), or simply recommending 'preferred' sites/providers for the recommended tools that all students should be using in college?
Struggling with this in Cambridge.... Phil
