.edu Tech Roundup

MIT Provides High Schools with OpenCourseware

High school students and teachers who wish their schools could delve more deeply into science, technology, and engineering should check out MIT's recently created Highlights for High School. This set of OpenCourseWare includes video demonstrations, lecture notes, assignments, and audio clips as well as high school courses developed by MIT students. Learn more at http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/hs/home/home/index.htm

Virtual Library of Virginia Teams up with PBS

VIVA, the Virtual Library of Virginia, has licensed 500 hours of programming from PBS. With the University of Virginia hosting the videos and streaming them out to VIVA's 70 public and private colleges and universities, programs such as Frontline and Nova reach a potential audience of 400,000 users. VIVA makes sure only students and staff of member schools access the programs by using InCommon, an identity management program. See http://www.incommonfederation.org/docs/eg/InC_CaseStudy_VIVA_2008.pdf

University of Texas Professor Takes to Twitter

YouTube, blogs, and podcasts have all been explored for use in the classroom, but does anyone see an academic use for Twitter, the social media tool that has people sending out brief updates on where they are and what they are doing? Yes, according to David Parry, assistant professor of Emerging Media and Communications at the University of Texas at Dallas. See Parry's “Twitter for Academia” blog entry at http://academhack.outsidethetext.com/home/2008/twitter-for-academia/