Click here to receive your FREE subscription to Campus Technology
2/26/2008
This week in San Francisco, Sun Microsystems is bringing together thought leaders in education from more than 30 countries for its annual Worldwide Education and Research Conference. This year's theme, "The Power of Communities," encourages participants to discuss collaboration, better access to education, and innovation with green technologies.The conference themes are defined as:
"Power of Communities: How technology, especially open source tools and learning platforms, create global communities for learning.
"Education 3.0: Examining the further erosion of boundaries between educational communities and new immersive technologies that bridge virtual and real-world environments.
"Eco Computing on Campus: With rising energy costs and heavier demand on power, space, and cooling, academic institutions are increasingly concerned about the environmental impact of their datacenters and are under pressure to reduce emissions, energy consumption and e-waste."
Speakers include Sun executives, government and education sector leaders, authors, and developers, and technology company leaders. Among them are Sun Chairman Scott McNealy, noted law professor and Creative Commons co-founder Larry Lessig, and Neil Howe, author of Millenials Rising... along with a host of others. A detailed agenda is available at http://events-at-sun.com/wwerc08/agenda.html.
Conference organizers are maximizing the reach of the conference through live broadcasts and blogs. To view a live stream during the conference through Wednesday, visit http://www.ustream.tv/sun (Note, pre-recorded videos play during conference breaks.) Full conference information can be found by navigating the links at http://events-at-sun.com/wwerc08/index.html.
copy text (above) for proper citation
The Foundation for California Community Colleges (FCCC) has awarded a statewide emergency alert notification contract to Waterfall Mobile. The contract establishes Waterfall's AlertU as an approved technology through the official non-profit foundation for the California Community College (CCC) system office. Through this partnership, individual colleges may directly implement emergency communication services, eliminating lengthy technology evaluation and RFP processes.
King's College and Arizona State University have switched to Omnilert's e2Campus for emergency notification. Omnilert also has introduced a new program called the ENS Conversion Service that allows schools to bulk upload data from their previous emergency notification system into e2Campus at no charge.
Saint Joseph's University has begun deploying a Meru Networks wireless local area network across its Philadelphia campus as part of a multi-year effort to bring wireless coverage to every building on campus.
Organizations may have been slow to adopt Microsoft Windows Vista, but expect that to change by late 2008 to 2009, according to a Forrester Research report by Benjamin Gray et al., published last week.
Talisma Corp. announced version 8.0 of its constituent relationship management (CRM) application for higher education. The new release includes application management, a revamped user interface, two-way text messaging, personalized Web portals, and an ADA-compliant Web client, among other enhancements.
Two Pennsylvania teaching colleagues with an interest in music and technology are bringing remote experts into classrooms at almost no cost, using Skype's free videoconferencing technology.