From the Educause Learning Initiative

The EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative's series provides brief articles on emerging learning technologies and related practices. Each brief focuses on a single technology or practice and describes:

• What  is
• How it works
• Where it is going
• Why it matters to teaching and learning

A few of the recent articles are listed below. To see the entire series, visit the ELI web site.

Blogs - an online collection of personal commentary and links. Blogs can be viewed as online journals to which others can respond that are as simple to use as e-mail. Faculty are using blogs to express their opinions, promote dialogue in their disciplines, and support teaching and learning; students increasingly use blogs for personal expression and to meet course requirements.

Podcasting - refers to any software/hardware combination that permits automatic downloading of audio files to an MP3 player for listening at the user's convenience. Podcasting allows learning to become more portable and gives educators another way to meet today's students where they live and learn - online and on audio players.

Virtual Meetings - Virtual meetings are real-time interactions that take place over the Internet using integrated audio and video, chat tools, and application sharing. They offer a way to engage students in fully interactive, online learning experiences such as lectures, discussions, and tutoring. Many virtual meeting applications integrate with course management systems, providing students and faculty with a unified learning system including access to online meetings.

Online Mapping - Mapping mashups use online mapping services, such as those offered by Google or Yahoo, to display customized, clickable markers showing points of interest and related information. In the classroom, they can place lessons in a rich geographical context and increase interactivity. They can be useful for spatial display of research data or for enhancing information on campus Web sites.