The EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) is a community of higher education institutions and organizations committed to advancing learning through information technology innovation. Each year the group convenes nationally, so that its members may share their work in pedagogical principles and practices. The theme of the 2018 ELI Annual Meeting on January 29-31 in New Orleans was “Achieving Student Success through New Models of Learning,” with presentations on to intra- and interinstitutional collaboration to drive educational technology innovation, classroom design to support active learning activities, and an exploration of emerging technologies and their application to improve student outcomes. Of particular interest were institutional research and development projects on the use of maker spaces and drones in higher education, since these topics relate to current Bryn Mawr initiatives. Planning has commenced on a new maker space in the Park Science Center, and the Geology program has a grant to employ drones in their curriculum.
Contributing to these discussions, Bryn Mawr’s Jennifer Spohrer, Palak Bhandari, and I presented a poster on “What to Do with Emerging Technologies? Using Augmented/Virtual Reality to Create Digital Skill-Building Internship Opportunities.” There we outlined the evolution of our own work with students to develop educational applications for the Microsoft HoloLens. In partnership with Pearson Education, we created a series of augmented/virtual reality demonstrations, workshops, three- and ten-week internships, and other employment opportunities to give students real world experience in application design and development. This semester in cooperation with LILAC and the Museum Studies Program, we also are conducting a Praxis course in which students are creating their own virtual museum exhibitions. These opportunities allow our students to build digital competencies and professional experiences, and they are examples of how colleges might think beyond the classroom and capitalize on student interest in emerging technologies to further strategic educational goals.
See more information on ELI's 2018 Key Issues in Teaching and Learning.
