I sat down recently with Cole Camplese, the Director of Education Technology Services at Penn State. Cole leads the group that is charged with fusing technology with education. Our meeting was downtown at the Rider Building in a room ETS calls the Cafe.

ETS has been making a spectacular push for students and faculty to utilize tools like blogs and podcasting over the last few years.  Seeing as we’ve pretty much got the blog part going for us here at Onward State, I thought we might try another ETS initiative- podcasting.

So without further ado, I’d like to present Onward State’s first podcast.  I hope you enjoy.

Play Interview

Some highlights from the interview:

ETS has been pushing “platforms” that support “digital expression”. This includes blogs, podcasts, etc. They are working with professors to redesign classes like English 202 to breathe new life into the archaic and much dreaded essay.

The classroom of the future may use technologies like text messaging and Twitter to survey students. We’ll see the traditional kinds of education, with technology aiding the engagement between faculty and students (aka do away with the “death by Powerpoint”). Students know how to apply technology to new concepts they learn in class since they’ve been using technology their whole lives.

The Education Gaming Commons, set to open soon in Findlay, will be used for using gaming to supplement education.  Think ancient battles being reenacted within video games, or microeconomics demonstrations in Second Life. The Gaming Commons will also be available for game development.  Head to gaming.psu.edu for more details.

Cole Camplese would choose to be a pterodactyl.  Seems like a wise choice to me.

Many thanks to Cole Camplese and ETS for taking the time to speak with us.  Be sure to let us know what you think about our first Podcast in the comments section below.

Photo from John Harwood’s Flickr