Bates College in Maine has a group exploring the role of new media in their higher education environment.  The blog includes a really interesting chart of the evolutionary direction of the online ecosystem.  They are working on some prototypes, with the goal of using no staff time and no money — not a bad goal (and as they admit not completely achieved.)  Much of the trick with new technology is not in the technical implementation, but in figuring out how to break old models and recast them around the expanded opportunities enabled by these technologies.  Exploring these issues through a regular dialog and small prototypes is a good way to go.

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