The MIT-Microsoft Alliance
Introductory science courses need to merge lectures, recitations, and hands-on laboratory experience into a technologically and collaboratively rich experience for incoming freshmen. This mix of technology, pedagogy, and classroom design results in better learning. Technology Enabled Active Learning (TEAL) at MIT (http://icampus.mit.edu/teal) is the latest iteration of this effective strategy.”
EDUCAUSE r e v i e w July/August 2005
For many people, the public image of higher education is the classroom: faculty talking, with students intently listening and taking notes… Many educators, however, increasingly argue that such classrooms are largely ineffective as learning environments and that they should not continue to be built. But what should take their place?…
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EDUCAUSE r e v i e w July/August 2005
“Microsoft Research today announced the first five recipients of its New Faculty Fellowship Awards, a new program that honors early-career university professors who demonstrate exceptional talent for novel research and thought leadership in their discipline.
PR Newswire, May 25, 2005
“Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates said yesterday the software giant is having enormous difficulty filling computer jobs in the United States as a result of tight visa restrictions on foreign workers and a declining interest among U.S. students in computer science.
Washington Post, April 28, 2005
“ShuttleTrack, a service that is designed to show real-time locations of MIT vans from a Web site, is running again after having been out of service since at least last summer.
The Tech, Friday, April 22, 2005
Thousands of people from across the country flocked to Boston last week for the 31st annual National Society of Black Engineers Convention. Among the more than 10,000 conference attendees packed into Hynes Convention Center were dozens of MIT students, alumni, faculty and staff who dedicated their time and energy to the five-day event, which was themed “Empowering the World…One Engineer at a Time.” See also on cover of TechTalk 3/30/05
MIT News Office – March 29, 2005
Students in Uganda, Tanzania and Nigeria can now perform sophisticated engineering and science experiments at MIT–without ever getting on a plane. “If you can’t come to the lab, the lab will come to you,” said Jesus del Alamo, co-principal investigator on the Africa project and a professor in MIT’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. See also on cover of TechTalk 3/30/05
MIT News Office – March 21, 2005
MIT’s iLAbs has expanded its remote laboratory program to include three African universities for students to perform real engineering and science experiments over the Internet.
By Nicolas Mokhoff, 03.21.05
MANHASSET, NY — MIT’s iLAbs has expanded its remote laboratory program to include three African universities for students to perform real engineering and science experiments over the Internet.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has received an $800,000 grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York to disseminate the use of educational technology developed at MIT to Africa.
Makerere University (Uganda), the University of Dar Es Salaam (Tanzania), and Obafemi Awolowo University (Nigeria) join five other remotely accessible labs, ranging from a heat exchanger to a shake table for earthquake engineering.
The iLabs have been used by students at MIT and from universities in other countries, including the United Kingdom, Singapore, Sweden, Greece, and Taiwan.
Jesus del Alamo, co-principal investigator on the Africa project and a professor in MIT’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science originally introduced a way for students to test and probe fragile microelectronic devices over the Internet from dorm rooms and other convenient locations 24 hours a day.
New iLabs will be selected and developed by the African partners in collaboration with MIT to develop new content in several graduate and undergraduate courses in electrical engineering and physics.
In addition, MIT will send six undergraduate or graduate students to the three African universities to join their respective iLab development teams and support their efforts for two months. In exchange, the African universities will each send two graduate students or staff members to MIT to join MIT’s own iLab effort and learn iLab technology along the way.
“The project is likely to have multiplicative effects in the form of revamped curricula and the broader use of computers by students and teaching staff in engineering education,” said del Alamo.
iLabs is an initiative of the MIT iCampus program, which is funded by Microsoft Corporation. To try one of the labs, go to the OpeniLabs site.
Source: EETimes Online – March 21, 2005
SEMICIRCULAR rows of benches face the front of the room. A raised platform faces the benches. Anyone who has ever attended college will recognize the setting at once: a lecture hall.
New York Times, Education Life Supplement, January 16, 2005
A group of MIT engineers wanted to model the biological world. But, damn, some of nature’s designs were complicated! So they started rebuilding from the ground up – and gave birth to synthetic biology.
Wired Magazine, Issue 13.01 – January 2005