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SAMHSA offers an online treatment services locator to help consumers find behavioral health providers in their region. But this web tool also demonstrates the shortage of substance use treatment providers [...]

Lynda Bascelli, MD, chief medical officer of Project H.O.P.E. provides primary care services for the homeless population in one of the nation's poorest cities, Camden, N.J. Her organization is working [...]

At the end of the 2010-2011 school year, San Diego Unified School District, had 10,000 iPads in use and was set to add 18,000 more the next semester. Teachers and students were enthusiastic about using the devices yet the district faced a serious problem: Teachers were reporting to the instructional tech team that using Apple Configurator and mobile sync stations to add new content to 30 iPads at a time was not working well. Like San Diego, school districts around the country are realizing that managing tablets brings a host of new and time-consuming headaches. "T.H.E. Journal" interviewed several district tehnology leaders in charge of large tablet deployments about their deepest pain points during implementation, and this article discusses what they had to say.

The first five articles of this series on technologies that enable collaboration, highlighted ways to foster shared learning experiences among students. For this, the final installment, focus is shifted to teachers. States, districts, and groups of teachers are enhancing their collaboration opportunities through synchronous online meetings and asynchronous discussions, enabling teachers to reflect on their own work and form new relationships around common topics of interest. Three ways of making online collaboration work are described in this article: (1) Video learning communities; (2) Cloud Conferencing; and (3) Communities of practice. [To view article 5 of this series "Collaborative Technologies: Crossing the Device Divide," see EJ1017991.]

There is a civil war simmering in classrooms nationwide. Arrayed on one side are students who would sooner cut off an arm than sacrifice their mobile devices. On the other stand faculty members who expect to be the focal point of their classes and will not abide distractions. Caught in the crossfire are instructional technology professionals. Charged with promoting technology use in class, they often end up keeping an uneasy peace. This article asks the question: "Is there a middle ground where collaborative learning can actually take place?" This is the sixth and final installment in "Campus Technology's" series on collaborative learning. The other titles in the series are: (1) Highly Collaborative Classroom Furniture; (2) Enhancing Coursework with Social Tools; (3) Collaborating via Web Conference; (4) Togetherware: Tools for Teamwork; and (5) Devices to Spur Interaction.

With collaborative learning one of the hottest buzzwords in higher education today, it is tempting to believe that schools have taken to the concept like ducks to water. Sadly, that is not the case. The old-style lecture format has been employed for so long that faculty--even students--often struggle to transition to a more engaged approach to teaching and learning. Among students, this difficulty is most apparent at community colleges, where enrollees range from recent high school graduates to adults learning new career skills. While younger students may be open to a collaborative learning approach--and the tech tools that accompany it--many older students prefer the lecture format. Giving up lecturing is one thing. Mastering the technology is another. For faculty who are comfortable with technology, collaborative- learning opportunities and approaches are innumerable. For others, though, simplicity is key. Here, "Campus Technology" (CT) looks at two categories of interactive devices--clickers and interactive displays--that can be utilized in class with little difficulty to forge more collaborative learning environments. (This is the fifth installment in CT's six-part series on collaborative learning. Previous articles include: (1) Highly Collaborative Classroom Furniture; (2) Enhancing Coursework with Social Tools; (3) Collaborating via Web Conference; and (4) Togetherware: Tools for Teamwork.)

More than ever, faculty and students are working jointly on documents sharing screens in class, swapping course materials and taking their collective pulse through polls. Nevertheless, many faculty members complain that technical support for group projects is lagging on campus, leaving them searching for solutions elsewhere. While some faculty have found free tools such as Google Docs and Dropbox sufficient, others are adopting more specialized software. Here are four examples of how faculty are facilitating collaboration in their classes: (1) Document Sharing; (2) Screen sharing; (3) Social bookmarking; and (4) Polling software.

Could new types of pedagogy that involve more classroom projects and peer instruction encourage school districts to replace outdated furniture and redesign classrooms? Or could new classroom designs using modular furniture have an impact on how teachers engage their students? These are just a few of the questions that educators, instructional technology leaders, and space-planning experts have been grappling with for the past several years as student-centered collaboration becomes increasingly important to the 21st century curriculum. Studies on the topic indicate that the classroom setup does indeed have an effect on instructors' habits as well as student participation and collaboration. Schools across the country are accommodating this mode of thinking by unbolting furniture and tearing down some of the more physical impediments to learning. In this article the author looks at the benefits of furniture that allows students to shape their own learning environment.

Ten years ago, integrating videoconferencing into a college course required considerable effort on the part of the instructor and IT support staff. Today, video- and web-conferencing tools are more sophisticated. Distance education has morphed from audio- and videocassettes featuring talking heads to a more interactive experience with greater immediacy. And the very fact that students and faculty can set up a videoconferencing using their smartphones and tablets now makes it possible for groups to stay connected outside the classroom much more easily. This article profiles four universities that are finding their own way to enhance collaboration with web conferencing.

With the exception of a plague of locusts, it seems as if the past five years have thrown every imaginable challenge at IT--from the incredible shrinking budget to BYOD and now the MOOC monster. For those of a superstitious bent, these were probably just appetizers to the crises that will inevitably accompany a year featuring the number 13 (cue sinister music and black cat). For those of a more sanguine disposition, this New Year's (like any other) was simply a chance to drink champagne and pontificate about the future. In this article, five experts on IT in higher education share their predictions of the winners and losers of 2013--trends that are, well, trending, and those already past their sell-by date.

Eric Sheninger, the principal at New Milford High School in Bergen County, NJ, is well-known in ed tech circles as an evangelist for the use of web 2.0 tools in K-12 education. New Milford has made collaboration a pillar of its educational platform, and Sheninger believes that social media helps students learn how to collaborate. In fact, he argues that many students are already collaborating with technology--and schools need to catch up. Educational computing expert Gail Lovely asserted that social media is a natural fit for education, since all learning is social. Yet that doesn't mean that adoption of these tools is a snap. Lovely went on to caution that schools using publicly available platforms must protect students from advertising and unwanted content. To get a fuller picture of the pitfalls and dividends, the author asked several innovative instructional technology leaders to describe their early experience helping teachers use social media to boost collaboration among their students.

PATIENT PORTALS were intended to streamline and improve patient care. But like many technology innovations, portals have suffered from the combination of shaky initial product rollouts and user error from [...]

In Portland, Ore., behavioral health provider LifeWorks NW and Virginia Garcia Memorial Health Center, a federally qualified health center, have long worked to coordinate care, which involved lots of document [...]

January brings many opportunities for change. The new year also allows district technology leaders and innovators to reflect on how the rapid pace of technological change is impacting what happens in their classrooms. Instructional technologies that were all the rage a year ago (netbooks) can be swept aside by this year's favorite (iPads). Discerning which new developments are truly effective and which are just fads is the toughest challenge. "T.H.E. Journal" recently convened five experts who spend their days in the trenches helping school districts understand the impact of technology on teaching and learning. The panel of experts determines which educational technology devices and practices are heating up, and which are losing steam.

For tech-savvy educators looking to connect with students, social media have a powerful allure: Not only are sites such as Facebook and Twitter inherently designed for discussion and the exchange of ideas, but most students are already immersed in the technology. While these sites have their critics, social media's potential for collaboration is hard to ignore. Social media offer a way for students to collaborate in a familiar environment, whether in a public forum, private network, or somewhere in between. [For part I, see EJ991760.]