NMC and Member News

The NMC announced today the release of the 2008 NMC Summer Conference Proceedings.

Attendees at the 2008 NMC Summer Conference, held in June at Princeton University, were asked to identify sessions of special merit that should be included in the 2008 NMC Summer Conference Proceedings, an invitation-only publication juried by the membership of the NMC.

The NMC today released the first in a new series of regional and sector-based Horizon Reports with the Horizon Report: 2008 Australia-New Zealand Edition. The new series is a product of the New Media Consortium’s Horizon Project, an ongoing research project that seeks to identify and describe emerging technologies likely to have a large impact on teaching, learning, or creative expression within higher education around the globe. This volume is the first in a new series of regional reports, and examines emerging technologies as they appear in and affect higher education in Australia and New Zealand in particular.

In May of 2008, the NMC conducted its second annual survey of educators in Second Life, provided as a yearly snapshot of the demographics and activities of educators who are active in Second Life. A link to the survey was sent to by email to individuals within the NMC's Second Life communities and to the Second Life Educators Listserv (SLED). This year, 358 individuals responded to the survey, a 170% increase from the number who answered our 2007 survey.

Below are a few highlights of our comparison to the 2007 survey. You can find links below to more summary information and the final survey data tables.

Please take a moment and welcome the new NMC Members who joined in October 2008!

• Australian Flexible Learning Framework
• Australian Learning & Teaching Center
• Champlain College
• Dickinson College
• Henry Ford Community College
• Loyola Marymount University
• Middlebury College
• St. Cloud State University
• Washington College

The twelfth in the series of NMC Virtual Symposia, Rock the Academy: Radical Teaching, Unbounded Learning, opened last night at NMC Conference Center with a nicely attended reception.

This fourth of these online conference held completely in Second Life, Rock The Academy is intended to explore the ideas and activities that are changing/revolutionizing the shape of education today. With some meeting and greeting, NMC staff welcomed attendees from as far away as Hong Kong, Australia, and Austin ;-) and one NMC staff member stationed in Iceland.

Today the NMC announces the release of its newest white paper, produced in conjunction with the Economist Magazine and in collaboration with Apple, Inc.  The paper, entitled "The Future of Higher Education:  How Technology will Shape Learning " reports the results of a study of nearly 300 CIOs and technology leaders inside and outside of education.

As you may have noticed, the NMC is deploying lots of new web tools to gather information of interest to its members. The newest of these, our Two Minute Surveys are literally designed to take no longer than that -- no more than three questions, with a focus on current topics in New Media.
Image Credit: Flickr cc license photo by nafra cendrers

Since we launched the new NMC web site in April 2007, more than 3000 people have/created used the site for registering for events, participating in online activities, or contributing content. Because we use the web site as our main directory, it is important to us to have accurate contact information, but also, the content in your profile provides ways to share your new media work and connect with colleagues.