The Chronicle of Higher Education, the news source of the U.S. academic world, featured Jim Groom, UMW director of teaching and learning technologies, Feb. 26 in 12 Tech Innovators Who Are Transforming Campuses. Here is the article in its entirety: THE INNOVATOR: Jim Groom, University of Mary Washington THE BIG IDEA: Colleges should use free Web tools for course discussions and projects to better prepare students for jobs after college. Jim Groom doesn’t hate learning-management software. But he’s certain it doesn’t make teaching any better. For Groom, an instructional-technology specialist, the features that attract professors in the first place – like grade books and quizzing tools – are traps that squash creativity and bury thorny issues like fair use. When professors try a learning-management system that promises to improve teaching, it “really encloses space, and it encloses the possibility of the Web,” he said. Groom charges so-called open-learning … [Read more...]