The higher education community has a lot of great knowledge and experience to share with the cultural community when it comes to new media and technology related collaboration, learning, scholarship, communications, open source software and other areas. That is one reason that I think it makes sense to pay attention to what's happening at NMC <http://www.nmc.org>, Internet2 <http://www.internet2.org> and other places where higher educators/technologists hang out.
Here is a great example of a University-sponsored day-long conference, free in person, streaming in second life, that will explore collaboration technology from angle that could be relevant to the museum community, but illuminated from a different direction. *note: i am not affiliated with this in any way but will be there in person. * >From Case Western Reserve University... "This is an outstanding opportunity for the entire community to learn and participant in the emerging world of collaboration technology. In addition to workshops, panels, and keynotes, there are big raffle drawings for computer systems and more (must be present to win). The website is open for registration at http://www.case.edu/its/collabtech08/collabtech08.html Case Western Reserve University will highlight new technologies and how they enhance research and discovery during its campus Collaboration Technologies Summit 2008 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. May 8 in Thwing Center. In addition, the keynote and panels will be streamed in ClevelandPlus in SecondLife<http://www.case.edu/its/services/documents/SlClevelandPLusIntro.pdf>. All university faculty, staff, students, alumni, neighborhood and community partners are invited to attend the symposium and demonstration event?that will be conducted simultaneously at collaborative sites throughout world. The event will feature a *keynote address* by Anthony D. Williams. An author, researcher and consultant, Williams's latest project is the bestselling book (co-authored with Don Tapscott) called *Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything.* Two panels at the summit will be anchored by Campus Computing Project Director, Dr. Kenneth Green, Visiting Scholar at Claremont Colleges. The first panel is titled *Making Sense of the explosion of Web 2.0 tools and their relevance and consequence in Higher Education*. Panelists include educators and faculty leaders from Case Western Reserve University, University of Southern California, Bradley University, and Researchers from IBM. At the end of the day-long event Green will host a panel called *Collaboration Technology?What's Next?: Bold Predictions, Cautionary Notes and Take Away Lessons*. Panelists include leaders from Case Western Reserve University, Tri-C, MIT, and the co-founder of SecondLife, Cory Ondrejka. Breakout sessions will include: Track 1: Community Engagement: From local impact to global influence - Connected Communities and Wireless Connectivity?Case Western Reserve, OneCommunity?The Next Chapter - Virtual Worlds and the New Frontiers of Learning?From SecondLife to Wonderland - Worldwide Learning Environments - To Data Warehousing and Beyond! Track 2: Mobile Discovery - Mobile Advertising?Where and how do 2D codes fit in? The Convergence of Print, Mobile and Internet: from USA TODAY to FaceBook, how CodeIntelligence extends the value of print advertising. The Nation's First 2D bar code trial: Findings & Implications Track 3: The People Formerly Known as the Audience - Rich Media and Participatory Culture?The Experience of YouTube and iTunes in Higher Education - New Frontiers in Video-Based Collaboration - Towards a Unified Communications Environment Leveraging VOIP and WebEx?The Cisco Story Track 4: Blogs and Wikis - Meet the Bloggers: Community Thought Leadership and Touching New Audiences - Scholarship and Blogging, the View From Within the Academy - Wikis and Collaboration Models for Active Learning Featured at the Summit will be demonstrations of the launch of the University Circle Wireless Mesh with Cleveland-based OneCommunity, Details of the Summit, including registration information, can be found at http://www.case.edu/its/collabtech08/collabtech08.html The conference is free. The Collaborative Technologies Summit 2008 is sponsored by Case Western Reserve's Information Technology Services, University Library, University Center for Innovation in Teaching and Education, Office of the Provost, Human Resources, Faculty Senate Committee on Information Resources and Council of Technology Officers. Corporate underwriting comes from IBM, Cisco, EMC, Dell, OneCommunity, Mobile Discovery, and PerceptIS.
