Innovative Uses for Educational Technology Funds?

RumGunner asks: "I work for a university, and we have a special 'technology' fee that is charged to students, intended to be used for focus on new technology of direct benefit to students either in the classroom or related educational/learning activities. Every semester there is a request for proposals on how to spend this money, and for the most part these proposals are fairly lackluster. Since I know there are a lot of .GOV and .EDU readers on Slashdot, I'm curious to see if anyone has any good ideas for large (or small) scale applications of new technology for the benefit of students?"

Comments

Database.

[MindStalker]

How about implimenting a .net/passport (but secure, and encrypted from admin eyes) style of database network. Where students can not only sign up for classes on the computers, which they can currently do in most universities, but can use this database to hold thier entire schedule of anything and everything they want and need to do. This database can be access anywere and everywhere on multiple types of devices, and teachers can input info into a students schedule as reminders in a safe secure way. The possibilies are endless. But as such a system is common in the workplace, getting students used to such a system, and getting computer students to create and admin such a system would provide many after college benifits.
And have an open idea policy, especially amoung the computer students, so that they can impliment any enterprise solutions they can think of. And wireless, definatly wireless.

Online Services

[closet_subversive]

While it is probably more oriented towards graduate students and faculty, online journals directly linked to our libraries search pages were a great addition. IEEE and physics journals tend to be used by a large number of students and might be a place to start.

Don't go too fancy...

[joto]

Simply ask yourself the question: "what is the most used resources now?" That should give you the answer.

However, I have some ideas as well...

• More copy-machines needed everywhere. Staplers, binders, that sort of thing.
• Computer rooms overloaded during peak hours. Need more computer rooms. Stuff them with old computers, people needing a fast one will do so outside peak hours anyway.
• Most universities have more than enough bandwith, but if it is low, block common file-sharing programs as actual work should get priority.
• Make sure competent people are running the machines, better invest something in salaries than in more machines (when half of them doesn't work, that can become expensive). Add quotas for everything, especially disk/printer usage, morons with large mp3-collections or morons that print every web-page they see should not be allowed to make life harder for other. Many students are competent. Pay them to run the network as part-time jobs. Install every imaginable kind of scientific open-source software. Get licenses for mathematica, matlab, spss, etc...
• Have different labs for different users. Standarizing on just one platform (whether it is Windows, Unix, or Mac) is not going to make everybody happy.
• Make a queue-system for making it easier to find an available machine, add a time-limit (not too short to get useful work done) if every machine is occupied.
• Put up some web-kiosks around campus at various places. That should give easy access to information when you don't need anything more than a quick browse of assignments on the course homepage, or checking your email. Put a printer there as well, but preferably with very strict quotas to avoid too much maintenance (say: max 3 pages per login session).
• Don't bother about students in dorms wanting access for free. They should either pay you the same they would have paid to a commercial provider, or shut up. If they can afford a computer, they can afford to pay for bandwith as well.
• Make sure you invest in something that will benefit everyone, not those screaming loudest.