Friday, 4 November 2011
Wednesday, 2 November 2011
What Makes a Great College Workplace?
More details from: http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/students-push-their-facebook-use-further-into-academics/33947
Students Push Their Facebook Use Further Into Course Work - Wired Campus - The Chronicle of Higher Education
October 27, 2011, 4:28 pm
College students are taking social media to a new level, using Web sites like Facebook to communicate with other students about their coursework, according to results of a new survey on student technology use.
Nine out of 10 college students say they use Facebook for social purposes, like writing status updates and posting pictures. And the majority, 58 percent, say they feel comfortable using it to connect with other students to discuss homework assignments and exams. One out of four students even went so far as to say they think Facebook is “valuable” or “extremely valuable” to their academic success.
The survey was conducted in June by the Educause Center for Applied Research, and was taken by 3,000 students from more than 1,000 colleges. The results show how technology is shaping students’ lives both inside and outside the classroom.
Kevin Roberts, chief information officer of Abilene Christian University, says technology is merging the academic and social aspects of students’ lives.
“Learning takes place beyond the 50 minutes you spend in class,” Mr. Roberts said. “So using Facebook, while you’re talking about the Rangers game, students just throw in, ‘Oh, by the way, did you understand what Dr. So-and-So was talking about today?’”
Some students say they still want to keep their social and academic lives separate, as noted in an earlier Chronicle story. In the survey, 30 percent of students say they prefer to draw a line between these two worlds.
Students are taking to other social networks, too. More than 30 percent of students say they use sites such as Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, and Google+. Nearly a quarter of students report using social studying sites, such as CourseHero and GradeGuru, and 11 percent say they wish instructors would incorporate these sites into the curriculum more often.
The idea of students wanting professors to integrate more technology use into the classroom was a common takeaway from the survey. After e-mail, learning-management systems and e-textbooks were the two technologies that students wanted instructors to use more frequently, according to the survey.
Learning-management systems are used by 73 percent of students, and e-books or e-textbooks by 57 percent.
Even though those technologies are commonplace on most campuses, some students say that their instructors don’t use them effectively or that they themselves don’t have the skills they need to use them effectively.
“Students are saying they want to see classes taught more like how they live their lives,” Mr. Roberts said. “I don’t think they just want technology for technology’s sake.”
Thursday, 4 August 2011
Go go gadget BIM… | Blog
2 August 2011
It was an interesting piece, and it struck a chord with me because it is a technology that I’ve been watching. Because of what I do, I try to keep an eye on what is going on around the edges of BIM, and I’m constantly looking to see if there is something that might be relevant to what we do. I thought I would share a list of some of my current favourites for this week:
Laser scanning
Rapid protoyping and digital modelling
From the rapid prototyping front, Autodesk is also keen to push into the “maker movement” and has recently released 123D which certainly looks worth a peek.
Mobile models
One of my favourite apps right now is the Inventor mobile viewer. Using that, I can carry around projects with full installation, safety and demolition instructions for fully attributed 3D models. The opportunity for buildings in this is massive – we just need to work out how to get them onto it first, but imagine construction information on a mobile platform from assembly to demolition through management.
I’ve also been watching a few other SAAS services develop BIM capabilities too – based on IFC format data, there are a few ways of “making BIM” online. Check out bimserver and Asite, also cadfaster and goBIM.
QR tags and RFID
I first came upon RFID (radio frequency ID) tags when I spoke at the precast concrete association annual conference, and I was immediately interested. Basically the idea is to “chip” each part of a building before its built, with a unique ID. This got me thinking – if they could be aligned with a BIM, we’d be part way there to automating assembly. Tekla then showed me where they had done it in real life, which was awesome, using RFID-tagged steel to manage the construction of a stadium in the US.
Now imagine what could be done when demolishing a building that had been constructed using RFID tags, and had assets with QR tags all linked to a BIM… Great stuff.