I began my IT career at a University. I was the computer handyman for the Development Office at The George Washington University. I learned a lot, paid for undergraduate and graduate degrees with tuition benefits, and launched into a successful career.
And now, perhaps as a bookend, I have returned to a University setting as the Director of IT for Emory University's Emory College of Arts & Sciences.
I think I've returned at a fascinating time. In 30 years, things haven't changed that much in Higher Ed IT. Sure, we used to be mainframe back then, but interestingly the system I worked with was IBM VM/HPO. A mainframe that could run multiple virtual machines. So now we have servers running VMWare.
Back then, some common packages taught and used in research were SPSS, SAS, Mathematica and Matlab. We run those same packages today.
Back then there were Student Information Systems and Learning Management Systems. The same exist today, and by and large the same processes exist.
But I think education, which has been conducted under a Socratic model for a few thousand years, and education technology, are both at the curve in the hockey stick of growth and transformation. MOOCs may have marked the beginning. And I marveled at how viral Pokeman Go became, and think - somebody is going to do something similar in education - gamify simple augmented reality to make things fun.
So having returned to Academe, perhaps I'll return to blogging a bit. I arrived here just after the Spring Commencement, and I have 3 more weeks until classes begin again. This should be fun!
And now, perhaps as a bookend, I have returned to a University setting as the Director of IT for Emory University's Emory College of Arts & Sciences.
I think I've returned at a fascinating time. In 30 years, things haven't changed that much in Higher Ed IT. Sure, we used to be mainframe back then, but interestingly the system I worked with was IBM VM/HPO. A mainframe that could run multiple virtual machines. So now we have servers running VMWare.
Back then, some common packages taught and used in research were SPSS, SAS, Mathematica and Matlab. We run those same packages today.
Back then there were Student Information Systems and Learning Management Systems. The same exist today, and by and large the same processes exist.
But I think education, which has been conducted under a Socratic model for a few thousand years, and education technology, are both at the curve in the hockey stick of growth and transformation. MOOCs may have marked the beginning. And I marveled at how viral Pokeman Go became, and think - somebody is going to do something similar in education - gamify simple augmented reality to make things fun.
So having returned to Academe, perhaps I'll return to blogging a bit. I arrived here just after the Spring Commencement, and I have 3 more weeks until classes begin again. This should be fun!