Faculty at SUNY Geneseo are using wiki technology to foster communities of practice among English majors studying literary interpretation and critical analysis. Through these online discussion fora, students from different course sections have a common space to explore multiple critical approaches and engage fundamental questions about their own roles as critics and students of English. Paul Schacht, Caroline Woidat, Rob Doggett, and Gillian Paku document their successes and challenges with teaching and learning in the digital realm.

The Early Novels Database (END) draws on University of Pennsylvania's Rare Book & Manuscript Library’s extensive collection of fiction in English published between 1660 and 1830, ranging from the canonical to the largely unknown. As Rachel Buurma, Anna Levine and Richard Li discuss, the project uses twenty-first-century technology and descriptive bibliography to enhance research access to the collection. As a collaborative effort of librarians, information technology specialists, faculty from Swarthmore College and University of Pennsylvania, and Swarthmore College undergraduate researchers, the database--when finished--will greatly enhance the writing of new histories of the novel. 

Beth Wilkerson and Carol Smith share their recipe for promoting the use of GIS and spatial technologies at DePauw University. Starting with a concept and grant support, DePauw has successfully developed a GIS program that supports academic and administrative programs. This project is the first recipient of the Sustainable Program Award, given by the National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education (NITLE) in recognition of projects that successfully transition into sustainable programs. Congratulations!

A simple statement about the numbers of students studying abroad led Jeff Howarth, a geography professor at Middlebury College, to design an innovative cartography assignment: how to represent that data visually on a map.  This project-based approach to learning lets students put their theoretical learning into practice and explore the creative side of problem solving.

How do you help students visualize the what a landscape looked like over 13,000 years ago? Biology professor Chris Fastie found some help using Google Earth and simple animation tools. With these tools, Fastie's students can better recognize the landforms of the past in the shape of the landscape today.

With SmartChoices, a Web-based map and data sorting application, parents in the metropolitan Hartford, CT region can navigate a myriad of school choices for their children. Developed through collaborative work between Jack Dougherty, a professor at Trinity College, students enrolled Dougherty's course, and a local community partner, the site illustrates the power of community-connected teaching and learning.

Luke Fernandez contemplates the potential and potential pitfalls of e-learning with mobile devices. Is this the next revolutionary iteration in mobile technologies--after the book, that is? Or are there still place-bound learning functions that cannot be replaced by the iPhone and its brethren?

To facilitate real time language exchange with native speakers, language technologist Todd Bryant and Japanese instructor Akiko Meguro developed the Mixxer.  What began as a simple project connecting American college students with native Japanese speakers is now a significant conversational network with more than 40,000 users. Bryant explains how his project grew and how tools like Drupal and Skype made it possible.

Librarians and faculty often think they know how students conduct research, but when a group of five college and university libraries used anthropologists to observe and interview students at work, there were some interesting observations about what happens in the course of an assignment. In this article, the authors discuss the project rationale, the scope of the research and the instructive findings that will guide efforts on their campuses to strengthen students' information literacy skills and facility with academic research tools.

Convinced of the importance of international experiences, faculty at Champlain College in Vermont set out to provide every student with international educational experiences throughout their undergraduate years. Study abroad can only go so far, and in most cases only brings students to one new place. So Champlain College developed the Global Modules project that integrates international study in multiple courses and allows students to learn from and with university students in the Middle East, Africa and Europe.