The ActiveClass Project: Experiments in Encouraging Classroom Participation
http://www.cs.ucsd.edu/%7Ewgg/Abstracts/activeclass-cscl03.pdf

William Griswold, a professor at UCSD, has developed a software application called ActiveClass that is  used, to foster and manage interaction between students and instructor. The program (in which HP donated wireless PDAs for use by students in a large class) uses PDAs in class lectures. Students could anonymously ask questions of the professor through the PDAs, the professor could choose which to answer and, if the students felt that the professor should answer one he was ignoring, they could continue to transmit the question until it received the attention they expected.

ASTD (American Society for Training & Development)
ASTD International Conference and Exposition
University of Wisconsin-Madison
http://www.astd.org

ASTD's virtual community
http://www.astd.org/virtual_community/forums/learning_tech/learning_tech.cgi
Web-based virtual community, discussion threads on value of elearning, implementation strategies, tools, and more.

Annual Conference on Distance Teaching & Learning
http://www.uwex.edu/disted/conference/

CNI
Coalition for Networked Information

http://www.cni.org/

CNI is an organization dedicated to supporting the transformative promise of networked information technology for the advancement of scholarly communication and the enrichment of intellectual productivity.  Some 200 institutions representing higher education, publishing, network and telecommunications, information technology, and libraries and library organizations make up CNI's members. The organization is sponsored by the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) and EDUCAUSE, and is governed by a Steering Committee chaired by Richard P. West, of California State University.   Executive Director Clifford A. Lynch (Keynote speaker at the Syllabus 2004 Conference) leads the CNI Staff at the Washington, DC headquarters. For announcements about the CNI community, subscribe to CNI-ANNOUNCE. CNI also maintains CNI-COPYRIGHT, a discussion forum on copyright and intellectual property issues as they relate to the networked information community.

Designing Web-Based Training
http://www.designingwbt.com
Companion site for book of same name, contains book examples and provides design tools (forms, templates, sample WBT course) and elearning reference material.

Croquet Project

http://www.opencroquet.org/

the U of Wisconsin’s Croquet Project is a combination of open source computer software and network architecture that supports deep collaboration and resource sharing among large numbers of users. Such collaboration is carried out within the context of a large-scale distributed information system. The software and architecture define a framework for delivering a scalable, persistent, and extensible interface to network delivered resources. The integrated 2D and 3D Croquet interface allows for co-creativity, knowledge sharing, and deep social presence among large numbers of people. Within Croquet's 3D wide-area environments, participants enjoy synchronous telepresence with one another.  Moreover, users enjoy secure, shared access to Internet and other network-deliverable information resources, as well as the ability to design complex spaces individually or while working with others.  Every visualization and simulation within Croquet is a collaborative object, as Croquet is fully modifiable at all times. Users and groups of users can author and publish their individual resources within a persistent 3D knowledge architecture. They may build any number of private or shared "worlds" instantaneously, making them immediately accessible for others to explore by providing spatial portals.  These portals function much like hyperlinks do within the World Wide Web. But unlike the Web, Croquet enables the user to find and get to other individual worlds through the larger context of Croquet's persistent common spaces. Croquet is also a complete development and delivery platform. Its infinitely scalable architecture provides it with enormous possibilities as an operating system for both local and global informational resources.

Applications such as browsers and word processors can be fully rendered and their functionality made completely available for use within the Croquet space. From the user perspective, this characteristic of the system will eventually make Croquet backwards compatible with everything installed on your computer.

EDUCAUSE/National Learning Infrastructure Initiative Virtual Communities of Practice
www.educause.edu/nlii/keythemes/virtualcommunities.asp
EDUCAUSE is a nonprofit association whose mission is to advance higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology.
EDUCAUSE VIRTUAL COMMUNITIES INITIATIVE
www.educause.edu/vcop
The NLII has designed and implemented four Virtual Communities of Practice pilots (October 2002 through December, 2003), organized around the following topics: Electronic Portfolio Practices, Learning Objects, Teaching and Learning Virtual Community of Practice, and The New Academy.

Generic Object Economy
Community Software Forum
http://goe.eoe.org/FMPro?-db=null.fp5&-format=goe/GOE_home.htm&-view
The educational object economy (EOE) is a model for using the Internet through a highly collaborative environment to develop next generation Internet technologies by creating reusable content at lower costs, with object based tools (ADL).  The collaborators are educators, software developers, researchers, business, government and military.  The community that has come together to support educational objects includes industry types like Apple, and Microsoft.   The concept is that an object-oriented approach to programming, especially Java applets, lends itself to an object oriented approach to education.  High quality, reusable, and customizable educational objects are useful for those using technology in teaching.  This approach is consistent with teacher as facilitator, providing access to education and training through compiling the necessary technology, i.e. Java applet for the drill and practice of adding and subtracting fractions, and providing access to his/her students.  This approach is inconsistent with the template or shell concept that many software developers often rely and develop at great cost.  The difference between the template and the object is important at the programming level as we can find that objects are more reusable than templates.  Educational objects have the same promise.

Harvey Project
www.harveyproject.org
Discipline-based/building human physiology course materials in the Web
An international collaboration of educators, researchers, physicians, students, programmers, instructional designers and graphic artists working together to build interactive, dynamic human physiology course materials on the Web. Materials produced by the Harvey Project will be made freely available to any educational institution.

Horizon Live Desktop Lecture Series
http://www.horizonlive.com/try_product/archived_demos.php#Desktop_Lecture_Se
These are fabulous 90 second flash movies, housed in an electronic archive that targets education, government and corporate stakeholders and clients (for example, a January 22, 2003 was titled, "Establishing the Expectations of an Online Course.").  You must register, but it is free and worth checking out. How to register: To sign-up for any Desktop Lecture:
1 Go to: http://www.horizonlive.com/aboutus/news/events.php#13?sourceid=27053
2 Click on "HorizonLive Desktop Lecture Series"
3 Click on any purple "Click here to register" link.
View a live demo:Sign-up for a demo of HorizonLive to see how it can be used at your organization to give online classes, meetings, or conferences. Go to: http://www.horizonlive.com/try_product/live_demo.php?sourceid=27053

IMS Global Learning Consortium, Inc.
http://www.imsglobal.org/

The IMS Global Learning Consortium develops and promotes the adoption of open technical specifications for interoperable learning technology. Several IMS specifications have become worldwide de facto standards for delivering learning products and services. IMS specifications and related publications are made available to the public at no charge from www.imsglobal.org. No fee is required to implement the specifications. IMS is a worldwide non-profit organization that includes more than 50 Contributing Members and affiliates. These members come from every sector of the global e-learning community. They include hardware and software vendors, educational institutions, publishers, government agencies, systems integrators, multimedia content providers, and other consortia. The Consortium provides a neutral forum in which members with competing business interests and different decision-making criteria collaborate to satisfy real-world requirements for interoperability and re-use.

ISPI (International Association for Performance Improvement)
http://www.ispi.org

Influent Resource Exchange Forum
Practical issues in elearning, training and support. Resources for training, support, and design (Influent Technology Group).
http://www.influent-rx.com/

Internet newsgroup
http://www.alt.training.technology
news:alt.training.technology
Discussions about elearning technology, course and job announcements, academic programs in learning technology.

Internet newsgroup
http://www.alt.education.distance
news:alt.education.distance
Academic course information.

Learning Styles and Stategies
http://www2.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/ILSdir/styles.htm
Richard M. Felder (Hoechst Celanese Professor of Chemical Engineering North Carolina State University) and Barbara A. Soloman (Coordinator of Advising, First Year College North Carolina State University).

Learning Times
http://home.learningtimes.net/learningtimes
An open community and archive. You must register to use this site, but it is free.

MERLOT
www.merlot.org
MERLOT is a free and open multimedia educational resource for learning and online teaching, designed primarily for faculty and students of higher education. Links to online learning materials are collected here along with annotations such as peer reviews and assignments.

The Massie Center
http://www.masie.com
eLearning think tank (Saratoga Springs, NY), contains articles and presentations on technology and learning.
 
NLII
National Learning Infrastructure Initiative
http://www.educause.edu/nlii/

The NLII vision is education that is active and learner-centered, dynamic and lifelong, collaborative, cost-effective, high-quality, and accessible. Its mission is to create new collegiate learning environments that harness the power of information technology to improve the quality of teaching and learning, contain or reduce rising costs, and provide greater access to higher education.

Online Learning Conference and Exposition
http://www.vnulearning.com

OLI
Open Leaning Initiative
http://www.cmu.edu/oli/

Through the OLI project, Carnegie Mellon is working to help the World Wide Web make good on its promise of widely accessible and effective online education. OLI grew out of collaboration among cognitive scientists, experts in human computer interaction and seasoned faculty who have both a deep expertise in their respective fields and a strong commitment to excellence in higher education. The project adds to online education the crucial elements of instructional design grounded in cognitive theory, formative evaluation for students and faculty, and iterative course improvement based on empirical evidence.

Open Knowledge Initiative
http://web.mit.edu/oki
Defines open architectural specifications to support the development of educational software
The Open Knowledge Initiative is defining open architectural specifications to support the development of educational software. Its architecture will provide a modular and extensible development platform for building both traditional and innovative educational applications while helping institutions leverage existing infrastructure. O.K.I. is designed for broad adoption in the university setting. It will simplify the methods of assembly, delivery and access to educational technology resources, while creating a large collaborative community. It will simplify the methods of assembly, delivery and access to educational technology resources, while creating a large collaborative community.

PADLR
Personalized Access to Distributed Learning Repositories
http://www.learninglab.de/padlr/index.html
PADLR is a collaborative project funded in part by the Wallenberg Global Learning Network (WGLN), aimed at developing a web infrastructure for student access to learning resources located anywhere in the world. Higher education is today characterized by growing numbers of students, combined with a shortage of resources for hiring faculty and providing direct teacher/student interaction. This situation is compounded by the increasingly heterogeneous nature of student populations and the widespread development of interdisciplinary programs, particularly in such areas as environmental studies and engineering. These factors have combined to make it necessary for students to, more and more, seek out resources for study on their own. PADLR addresses this need through a series of project modules that together comprise the foundation for a distributed web learning infrastructure, including tools, courselets, and archives developed in accordance with international metadata standards.

Project Neptune
http://www.neptune.washington.edu/

The goal of the NEPTUNE project is to establish a regional ocean observatory in the northeast Pacific Ocean. The Project’s 3,000-km network of fiber-optic/power cables will encircle and cross the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate in the northeast Pacific Ocean, an area roughly 500 km by 1,000 km in size.

Between 30 and 50 experimental sites will be established at nodes along the cable. These sites will be instrumented to interact with physical, chemical, and biological phenomena that operate across multiple scales of space and time. Sensor networks will fill in the volume between nodes and will include multipurpose robotic underwater vehicles that will reside at depth, recharge at nodes, and respond to events such as submarine volcanic eruptions. Via the Internet, the network will provide real-time information and command-and-control capabilities to shore-based users.

NEPTUNE will be located in the northeastern Pacific and will be spatially associated with the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate. Node (junction box) locations shown here are hypothetical. Final decisions on placement will depend on scientific and engineering input.

With an expected infrastructure lifetime in excess of 30 years, NEPTUNE will enable regional-scale, long-term, real-time observations and experiments with the ocean, seafloor, and subseafloor. The network will be a resource for the scientific and educational communities, much as a research vessel is an observational platform open to a wide range of users. For the first time, researchers, as well as decision makers and shore-based learners of all ages, will participate in detailed studies and experiments on a wide area of seafloor and ocean for decades rather than just hours or days. The network will provide unprecedented multidisciplinary measurements at spatial scales from microns to megameters and at temporal scales from microseconds to decades.

Ready2net webcasts
http://www.ready2net.net/
A free series of national satellite broadcasts and web cast programs. This is a multi-part series of national and international interactive roundtable meetings focused on the challenges and opportunities that the Internet presents to higher education. Leaders from the higher education community and high tech industry participate in a structured discussion about an array of technology issues affecting higher education. Ready2Net is intended as a forum for exchange, learning, and reflection among the technology and higher education communities. The programs are available free, broadcast live via satellite and streamed over the Net. A web cast from October 24, 2002 discussed, "TEACHING, LEARNING & ASSESSMENT WITH E-PORTFOLIOS" and was produced in cooperation with the National Learning Infrastructure Initiative (NLII) & the Electronic Portfolio Action Committee.(E-PAC). The archived webcast discusses: Why do we need e-portfolios? What are they good for? What are the pedagogical benefits? What should the content standards be? What are the key challenges in moving from paper transcripts to those that include e-portfolios? What are the short and long-term policy implications of e-portfolios (security, privacy & access, long-term legal implications, definition of official record, need for institutional gatekeepers?) Are there guidelines for influencing vendors to meet higher education’s needs? How can existing technologies be used to design effective e-portfolios? How can e-portfolios be integrated into existing enterprise systems (student information systems)?

Revolutionizing Science and Technology Through Cyberinfrasturcture
http://www.cise.nsf.gov/sci/reports/atkins.pdf

January 2003 NSF report chaired by Dan Atkins, a professor in the University of Michigan’s School of Information and the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, which addresses the use of technology to facilitate scholarly communication.

SAKAI project

http://www.sakaiproject.org/

The Sakai Project is a $6.8M community source (community source describes a model for the purposeful coordinating of work in a community. It is based on many of the principles of open source development efforts, but community source efforts rely more explicitly on defined roles, responsibilities, and funded commitments by community members than some open source development models) software development project founded by The University of Michigan, Indiana University, MIT, Stanford, the uPortal Consortium, and the Open Knowledge Initiative (OKI) with the support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.  The project is producing open source Collaboration and Learning Environment (CLE) software with the first release in July 2004.  The Sakai Educational Partners' Program (SEPP) extends this community source project to other academic institutions around the world, and is supported by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and SEPP member contributions.

SALT (Society for Applied Learning Technology)
http://www.salt.org

StatTutor
http://www.cmu.edu/stattutor/

StatTutor is an intelligent tutoring system developed at Carnegie Mellon that facilitates understanding of statistical ideas and analytical techniques by helping students construct useful knowledge representations and thereby develop effective problem-solving skills. It uses a specified outline of steps to follow in solving problems, or "scaffolding". StatTutor uses scaffolding and immediate feedback flexibly, tracking and responding to individual students as they navigate the learning environment.

Syllabus Magazine is a 101communications, LLC publication that explores issues in technology for higher education. There are print and web editions, and an enewsletter (to which you may subscribe via an email listserv process). Syllabus eNewsletter: http://lists.101com.com/syllabus; Syllabus Press: info@syllabus.com; Web SyllabusWeb: http://www.syllabus.com.

Syllabus Radio
http://www.syllabus.com/radio/index.asp
Some examples of webacasts include: The Multi-Dimensional Evaluation of Online Learning (Duration 10.06 Minutes | File Size 7MB); Web Portfolios for Students and Instructors (which discusses how instructors in digital arts, graphic design, and interactive multimedia can create and implement Web portfolios into their pedagogy, administrative efforts, courses, and their own workloads); and Web Portfolios for Students and Instructors (Duration 11.04 Minutes | File Size 7.65MB).

TechKnowledge
http://www.astd.org

The Training Supersite
http://www.trainingsupersite.com/
Articles, conference lists, learning resources (joint venture between Training magazine and Bill Communications).
 
Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War
http://valley.vcdh.virginia.edu/

The Valley Project details life in two American communities, one Northern and one Southern, from the time of John Brown’s Raid through the era of Reconstruction. In this digital archive you can explore thousands of original letters and diaries, newspapers and speeches, census and church records, left by men and women in Augusta County, Virginia, and Franklin County, Pennsylvania. Giving voice to hundreds of individual people, the Valley Project tells forgotten stories of life during the era of the Civil War.

WBT Producer Conference and Expo
Influent Technology Group
http://www.influent.com