Information and digital literacy in education via the digital path

I’m working currently on a book about why people choose college. In the course of the research, I’ve listened to hundreds of students tell their story about how they made the college—or any postsecondary education—decision.

Many of the students I’ve listened to were, at one time or another, college dropouts. They left for a multitude of reasons, from family needs and responsibilities to medical and financial hardship, as well as a lack of purpose for being at college in the first place.

An annual survey on video in higher education found that more than half of the institutions who responded now use a video solution integrated into their Learning Management System. The figure is up 6% from 46% last year. In addition, three quarters of students in higher education use video in their assignments, up 4% on last year’s figure of 71%.

From the outside, it’s nondescript: a large cube, surrounded by racks of projectors and topped with a frame holding additional projectors. Like so much else in life, though, it’s what’s inside that counts.

Duke University built the Duke immersive Virtual Environment in 2005 and upgraded it in 2015, funding both projects with National Science Foundation grants. “This kind of device was invented at the University of Chicago back in the early 1990s,” says DiVE Director Regis Kopper.