Community of Educational Technology Support (ComETS)

ComETS is an Iowa State University community that promotes dialog and events focused on technology in learning & teaching. ComETS is a university-wide community where ideas and resources can be shared, and debate can occur on future technology directions at ISU. ComETS is open to all interested ISU faculty and staff.

ComETS objectives:

ComETS has established a listserve to maintain dialog about, share news, and to publicize events related to educational technology at Iowa State. Any interested faculty, staff, and graduate students are welcome to participate. Subscribe to the ComETS listserve here, or click "Subscribe" in the menu on the left.

ComETS 2012 Symposium - Thursday, March 22nd

The 2012 ComETS Symposium will be held from noon to 5:00 on March 22nd in the ISU Memorial Union and will focus on mobile computing, and mobile-enabled computing strategies

The event will start in the Sun Room with a panel discussion on eTexts, which will be followed by the keynote from Dr. George Saltsman, Executive Director of the Adams Center for Teaching & Learning at Abilene Christian University (ACU). His presentation, "Empowering the Academy for the Digital Age", will address the progression of documented knowledge from the Stone Age to today, and engage the audience in the issues related to the information explosion and the need for computer-mitigated strategies for accessing it.

The 2012 ComETS Symposium will also feature the popular "lightning strike" sessions; 10-minute presentations by ISU faculty and instructional support staff on technology innovations and strategies. The day will conclude with a student panel addressing mobile technology use on campus, including a fresh 2012 survey of student needs on mobile computing.

Workshop - Friday, March 23rd

On Friday, March 23rd, from 9:00-11:00 in room 1230 of the Communications Building, there will be a workshop on "Increasing Student Engagement with Mobile Learning Strategies" presented by Dr. Saltsman and Dr. Stephen Baldridge of ACU. It will explore simple strategies using free digital tools that increase student engagement. It will also provide researched-backed hands-on approaches that can be used in a variety of disciplines both in and outside the traditional classroom.

(Additional registration is required. See the 2012 Symposium page for more information.)

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For more information, to register to attend the symposium, or to sign up to present a Lightning Strike, visit the 2012 Symposium page.

Online Media Interest Group

The Online Media Interest Group will meet again on February 16th, in room 1230 of the Communications Building beginning at noon. We will be discussing the recent upgrade to Panopto 4.0, the activation of the Blackboard building block that links to Panopto, and the new features in Panopto 4.1 Anyone is welcome to attend, but if you would like to share in the pizza and drinks that will be provided, send a message to Mike Wilson to reserve a spot.

Needs Assessment Surveys Reports

ComETS has conducted a campus-wide needs assessment to learn more about educational technology use, needs, and attitudes. The first step of the needs assessment has been to conduct two separate surveys. One for faculty/staff, and a second survey for students.

The student survey is now complete. It was conducted during the fall of 2010, and is summarized in a 27 page report. Student comments provided during the survey are also included as an appendix to the main document. The full report, complete with the appendices is available for download as a PDF file at the following link:

Besides the overall responses in the report, the appendices include responses stratified by year in school (freshman, sophomore, etc.). For responses stratified by college, see the link immediately below.

The ComETS steering committee has made recommendations based on this report. Those may be found on page 26.

The faculty/staff survey is also available. This survey was conducted in April 2010, and is summarized in a 63 page report. Additionally, respondent comments to open-ended questions are included in subsequent appendices. Both the report, as well as the report plus appendices, are available via PDF download at the following links:

The ComETS steering committee has collectively come up with the recommendations of the report on page 62.