Sarah will be covering the following topics on the use of Mathematica-

• Editing text, generating quizzes, and making presentations
• Using free-form input to enter calculations in everyday English
• Creating models in Mathematica to investigate classroom concepts
• Accessing ready-to-use teaching models in math, physics, chemistry, biology, economics, engineering, music, and other subjects
• Utilizing visualization tools and annotated graphics
• Experiencing Mathematica’s integrated data sources for chemicals, particles, cities and countries, financial instruments, astronomical objects, etc.
• Applying and integrating data sources across disciplines and school departments
• Using Mathematica’s built-in documentation
• Exploring the numerous resources available to teachers and researchers

This presentation is open to all IWU faculty, staff and students.

http://www.joinopenclass.com/open/view/t1

The Educause conference is this week and we have opted to web stream a number of excellent talks live from Philadelphia.  We will be viewing the following in Beckman Auditorium. Please join us!

Wednesday, October 19th from 7:00 a.m. – 8:45 a.m.
Speaker: Seth Godin
General Session: Invisible or Remarkable?
Description: The most precious commodity available today is attention. Best-selling author Seth Godin will describe the realities of our postindustrial world. It turns out that ideas that spread win, that stories rule, not facts, and that remarkable products and services are the most profitable and most likely to succeed. He will discuss how to avoid serving the meatball sundae, mismatching the new marketing with the old, and maintaining the status quo. He will also address how to ship products that make a difference, leadership as the most effective form of marketing for a new generation and a new economy, the privilege of becoming a linchpin, and the obligation to “poke the box.”

Thursday, October 20th from 9:30 a.m. – 10:30 a.m.
Speaker: Danah Boyd
General Session: Privacy in an Era of Social Media

Description: There is a widespread myth that young people don’t care about privacy. Embedded in this myth is an assumption that participation in public social media services indicates a rejection of privacy. Yet, just because people want to participate in public life doesn’t mean that they want everything they do to go down on their permanent record or to be publicized for the whole world to see. This talk will examine the strategies that young people take to secure their privacy in highly public environments like Facebook and Twitter and why those in higher ed should care.

Individual track sessions can be viewed in the Thorpe Center in the Ames Library during the 3 day event.  See the entire schedule here -
Educause Online 2011

CourseSmart

With the growing popularity of ebooks and digital content, the stereotypical massive textbook no longer has its usual place in the world of academia-nor in students’ weighty backpacks. This is exemplified by CourseSmart, an online marketplace for course materials that aims to improve teaching and learning by providing instructors and students better access to textbok content. Developed by five higher education textbook publishers-Pearson; Cengage Learning, Inc.; McGraw-Hill Education; John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; and the Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishing Group, LLC-CourseSmart unites thousands of textbooks under one digital umbrella and invites students to ditch those heavy books and instead discover information digitally.

This etextbook approach not only helps students save on expenses (and alleviate back strain), it allows more flexibility by providing access to thousands of textbooks directly from a computer screen. With CourseSmart, users can search for a book by course name, author, keyword, title, or ISBN. They then have the choice to download the book to their computers or buy an online version that grants them subscription-based access. Other smart benefits include the copy-and-paste tool, which allows users to copy and paste text from the etextbook into notes, virtually eliminating the need for highlighters, and the print tool, which can be used to print specific sections of an etextbook rather than lugging the whole book around. The benefits of using etextbooks extend to instructors as well. CourseSmart provides access to textbooks and other course materials within an instructor’s particular field for review and comparison without the need to request print exam copies. Offering selective print ordering saves some trees and in turn benefits the environment. With more than 2,000 schools currently using CourseSmart, the idea of accessing textbooks digitally is not only a bright one, but it is changing the way students and faculty members approach their academic ventures.

This article from:

InSites By: Mullan, Eileen, Mullan, Eileen, EContent, 15252531, , Vol. 31, Issue 10

Library Literature & Information Science (H.W. Wilson)

http://www.nitle.org/live/files/40-2011-nitle-summit-report

Constant technology connectivity is distracting college students.

The keynote speaker this year was John Seely Brown.  The topic of Dr. Brown’s discussion was A New Culture of Learning for a World of Constant Change

The morning plenary on day two of the Summit began with a wonderful discussion entitled The Future of Liberal Education – Coffee and a Conversation with Drs. danah boyd, Michael Wesch, Bryan Alexander, Katie Conboy, and Rick Holmgren.

The Office of the Provost, The Mellon Center and The Ames Library are hosting an Innovative Possibilities Open House in the Thorpe Center (Ames 301), on Thursday, March 31, from 3:00 – 5:00 p.m. Refreshments will be served.

Join your colleagues and learn how they have been integrating new technologies into the classroom:

3:00 – 3:30 – Sonja Fritzsche- Integrating video clips

3:30 – 4:00 – Leah Nillas – E-Portfolios

4:00 – 4:30 – Diego Mendez-Carbajo – Using Moodle in a writing intensive course

4:30 – 5:00 – Allison Weiss – Engaging technologies in the language classroom (Skype, Flip videos, tablets)

Please indicate your interest in attending any or all of these sessions so that we may provide adequate seating.

Also, feel free to drop in at any time during the event to see demonstrations of some new and emerging technologies:

Tablets (iPad2, Samsung Galaxy Tab)

Document cameras

Interactive whiteboards

Flip videos

Diana Oblinger and  John Seely Brown will discuss how the vision presented in Brown’s new book A New Culture of Learning is likely to impact higher education.

See http://educause.informz.net/educause/archives/archive_1350478.html

for more details.