We are currently seeking content contributors from University Park and around the Commonwealth. If you might be interested in contributing to the course, please send an email to Bart Pursel at:

bpursel@ist.psu.edu

for more information.

The Syllabus Tool is an application that will allow an instructor to create a web-based syllabus used to display course information for any of the Online IST courses. The syllabus will be constructed based upon a template that provides instructors with the basic information required by Penn State University and will also allow instructors to customize their syllabus to meet their individual course needs.

In the past, it has taken faculty no fewer than eight difficult steps to create a syllabus for an Online IST course. Some of these steps require an in-depth knowledge of html or html editors. The new process is approximately four steps and does not require any html or FTP knowledge.

Preliminary plans include shifting the course focus from specific technologies to the processes involved in designing and implementing technology-centered solutions. Plans are underway to create content revolving around the ADDIE (analyze, design, develop, implement, and evaluate) model, and how to utilize the ADDIE model when undertaking technology projects. The labs for Online IST 250 are currently being reviewed, and we hope to add a few more lab activities to the Labs Library for the Fall 2003 semester.

Look for more updates throughout the summer in the eNewsletter!

• Content distribution
• Just in time assessment and feedback
• Enabling factors associated with mobility

It is our opinion that mobility has the potential to become one of the most important engines for effective learning in higher education. To achieve our vision of building leaders for the digital global economy, our school is currently taking major steps to create a virtual pervasive learning environment for ultimate learning.

At the School of IST, web-based access has extended the learning reach and physical classroom. However, given the future reach of pervasive computing devices, it has become imperative to transform the Online IST curriculum to an mLearning experience. Many online learning curricula that claim to be "anytime, anywhere" fall short of that in reality due to the tethers of the current desktop computing paradigm. True anytime, anywhere access requires an agile set of learning materials that are flexible and can be deployed across multiple platforms via multiple form factors, such as mobile phones, wireless laptop computers, wireless handheld devices, and unidentified devices that will appear in the future.