Tech{stravagant}

The higher education industry is being directly impacted by the maturing Internet and an education revolution is here.  Students today are much more web-savvy than in years past and they have personal and professional needs and demands that are continually expanding along with the capabilities of today’s e-learning technologies. Combined with the idea that the costs of education are increasing at what some consider to be unsustainable rates, and with employment opportunities not being as abundant as they once were, new distance learning models should be developed and embraced if universities and other teaching institutions hope to remain as relevant as they can be.

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iTunes U has evolved into what was once a basic collection of categorized multimedia content in the iTunes online store where recorded course lectures and related material from various educational institutions could organize and offer free audio and video podcasts. For the most part, this content could – and still can be (as individual files), downloaded and subscribed to by anyone. But very recently, iTunes U has been entirely overhauled and polished and has matured into an app-based platform with a full ecosystem of course related content that is augmented using iOS based technology to establish full-fledged virtual classroom experiences.

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While perusing the web recently, I came across a concise tutorial that explains a great workaround that will allow iPhone and iPad users to bypass one of the significant limitations of iOS. For those of you who work with a Mac, you might agree that one of its simplest, yet most valuable, tools is the built-in function that allows users to select the “print” option while navigating the web to save almost any online content as an archivable and easily distributable PDF file.

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When managing information online, there are many instances when securing related data may be a high priority. Content management systems used to curate and disseminate that information, like WordPress, do offer some security measures by default. But those platforms aren’t necessarily designed to comply with the strict standards many may feel a need to impose. When it comes to online course management… gradebook records, profile information, course assignments, and other miscellaneous data, maintenance through the use of various plug-ins can help you meet your security and privacy needs.

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Using a web content management system like WordPress to supplement a campus-based course, or to deliver related content through entirely, can be a terrific option for all levels of educators. But keeping your online course sites’ back-ends streamlined as you begin to move more materials online could seem like a daunting challenge to some. To maximize efficiency when it comes to running multiple course sites through WordPress, a good solution is to establish a WordPress “multisite network”. This method has numerous benefits including the ability for faculty to be able to control certain elements of their own course shell(s) while also allowing an administrator (or admin team) to monitor and maintain the networked sites more efficiently when compared with having to sustain standalone versions of each class shell separately.

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In the real world, we “exist” in here-and-now types of circumstances for fixed periods of time that can be managed through our physical actions and the various decisions we make. We are often held accountable for those actions in any number of ways that often correlate with legal pressures, peer response, social influences, emotional distress, and personal ethics. But when mistakes are made in the real world, the aspects of those circumstances immediately become a part of our past and the physical evidence of them begin to fade immediately.

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