"We must prepare U of T for a borderless world."

Ontario is creating a new fund to drive start-up investment in green technology companies and other high-tech businesses.

My name is Mitchel N. Townsend, your Higher Education Editor.

The Higher Education Headlines section contains a wide range of great articles from the Auroramax Project, to Ryerson Universities President urging Toronto to become the next digital powerhouse, to several articles illustrating the evolutionary effects that social networking technologies are having on all aspects of Higher Education.

The Ask a Professor Section features Dr. Sharon Murray from St. Thomas University.  Dr. Murray shares her essay titled "Telementoring" which discuses using technology to help facilitate mentoring processes.

The Research and Tech Tools Section continues to illustrate a wide variety of Information and Tools that will augment the already growing inventory, in your Tech Tool Boxes. Don't forget to read the Article from MIT about "Sixth Sense" wearable computers, also check out the MSL Report video interview with an independent parallel prototype developer at FETC 2009.

The GreenIT Section sponsored by Faronics, is an emerging area of importance, and through our collaborative partnerships we continue to bring you the latest research and information.  The article by Google's GreenIT czar previews its role and plans for its emerging GreenIT leadership role.

The Funding Opportunities Section this month contains resources totaling over 2 billion dollars in current funding.

Finally, from all of us at the Mindshare Learning Report, "Thank you for your continued support and loyal readership".

Enjoy this months issue and remember the challenges may be vast and resources tightening but we as Canadians are up to the challenge.

Do you manage a large network? Do you want to save a bundle of money? Have you introduced software that will keep tabs on each computer on your network and put idle computers into a lower state of energy consumption? The question of wanting to save money is, of course, rhetorical - who doesn't want to save money, especially in an economic climate where frugal spending is a must?

Today, the Canadian Space Agency, the City of Yellowknife, the University of Calgary and Astronomy North announced the creation of AuroraMAX, an online observatory and outreach project that will feature live broadcast of the northern lights from Yellowknife.

In an address given to a sold-out crowd at the Empire Club today, Ryerson University President Sheldon Levy dared Toronto to dream big and dream digital.

A pilot project at the University of Saskatchewan in which class lectures are recorded as audio files has received positive responses.

Sharon received her doctorate in 1999 from the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England where she studied policy and program evaluation. She has taught in New Brunswick at all levels of the education system - elementary, high school and post-secondary. She currently teaches technology and social studies courses in the Education Faculty of St. Thomas University.

Sharon's involvement with technology education began in 1982 when she taught a high school computer studies course. In the late 80s when she moved to the university setting she instituted a Technology, Issues, and Instructional Design course that became and continues to be compulsory for all Bachelor of Education students. Her interest in the introduction of technology education became part of her doctoral research.  Her thesis was a policy and program evaluation of the introduction of technology education in New Brunswick secondary schools. Her current research interests are focused on informing professional practice and improving student learning particularly in the areas of technology integration in education, mentoring, and communities of practice.

 
 

My learning adventure to the Alberta Distributed learning Symposium 2009 was time well spent with my partner, netTrekker last month. A safe and secure search engine for education, netTrekker continues to gain traction in Canadian schools, given the appeal of the teacher recommended resources. Given the escalating incidents encountered by children browsing the web, a teacher approved portal is a great option to avoiding inappropriate information or abuse.  It was great to catch-up with Joni Turville, MindShare Learning's advisory board member now seconded to the Alberta Education Department.  Besides a stellar line-up of presenters, the conference was extremely well attended and the conversations continued with an online community forum. To get a glimpse of the conference and its presenters, check here. Congratulations to conference organizers for a successful collaboration between the Alberta Teachers' Association, ADETA, the Alberta School Library Council, Education Technology Council and  Alberta Education.  

Thanks to Damian Bolton and Mona Csada, SMART Technologies for a tour of their new digs in Calgary, strategically located across the street from the University of Calgary. This state of the art Green building speaks to the leadership that SMART has demonstrated as an overwhelming market leader in the IWB space. I even had the opportunity to meet the mastermind behind SMART's new multi touch table that was on display at the Alberta conference.

Final thoughts on the Alberta conference. One of the highlights was meeting Guy Kawasaki, former Apple Evangelist who was a conference keynote. Guy is a highly engaging presenter.  We studied his craft in our masters program at Pepperdine, reading his book "Selling the Dream." His book "Reality Check," looks very interesting and is highly recommended. enjoyed chatting with Guy following his keynote and discovered a common interest - the sport of hockey. Although he resides in California, hockey is a BIG passion for both of us.

Derek Merilees of HP shared the news recently that they are sponsoring the York Region District School Board "Blueprint for Change" Symposium, April 29th. For more information, click here.

Jacob Chan, CIO Toronto District School Board retired in February. I had the opportunity to spend some time with Jacob while in NFLD in the Fall at the Microsoft Summit.  Jacob is quite a talented photographer based on the pics shared using Groove while at the conference. Congrats Jacob and enjoy your travels!

Michael Bator former Director of Education, now ED of the Catholic Curriculum Corporation was recently appointed to the board of Knowledge Ontario.

Christine Brown, touched base recently to share the excellent news that she successfully defended her doctoral thesis at York University, where we both served on the advisory board for the Institute for Research on Learning Technology. Ms Brown is now a lecturer at Ryerson University. Congratulations Christine, I'm inspired by your excellent news.

Congratulations to School District #87 Technology and Atlin Students Combine to Make History.The Grade 6-9 class in Atlin has been active for months with a technology Internet based learning project called Destination Imagination. Over sixty schools started this initiative and Atlin was one of two schools to complete their project. History was made when the students participated in the first ever Destination Imagination Tournament on-line. Elluminate brought schools and instructors together from across British Columbia.

In case you're wondering, Atlin is just two hours south of Whitehorse according to teacher, Gerry Brennan of SD #87. He further added, "Simply stated, rural and remote communities can make great gains in learning when technology is used effectively to support learning. The better it gets, the more students can benefit under the guidance of dedicated teachers." Well stated Gerry and thanks for dropping me the email to share your further thoughts.  If you'd like to drop Gerry a note to explore making connections with your students, you can reach him here.

In closing, I'm looking forward to our first ERDI Canada panel in Winnipeg later this week, where we'll be teamed up with five school district directors from across Canada to explore a future roadmap for MindShare Learning services.

Publisher & Managing Editor, The MindShare Learning Report™
President, MindShare Learning™
www.mindsharelearning.com  

 Before printing think about the Environment. Avant l' impression, il faut penser ą l'Environnement.