The Wired Tower: Perspectives on the Impact of the Internet on Higher Education - Hardcover

The Wired Tower makes sense of the changes that are being wrought by the Internet and related technologies, and explores which aspects of Internet-related change offer the greatest long-term promise in higher education, which are superficial, and which should be rejected.

Editor Matthew Pittinsky and his diverse contributors widen our perspective on the Internet, viewing it as the latest in a series of "macro-level" changes that have repeatedly transformed higher education and broadened access to it. Drilling down to implementation issues, they offer specific guidance on course redesign, and on the cost, policy, and staffing implications of the wired campus. Finally, Neil Postman offers an essential counterweight to technological optimism, posing skeptical questions academics should ask before buying into technological and business-based paradigms in higher education.

With original contributions from:

The effects of the Internet on colleges and universities: revolution, evolution, or both?

• Wide-ranging perspectives on technology in higher education
• Viewpoints from leading academics, administrators, and business and investment professionals
• Five transformative Internet-based learning practices most likely to succeed
• Contributors include Neil Postman (author of The End of Education) and Arthur Levine, President, Columbia Teacher's College

The Internet is changing higher education—but how? Which changes are revolutionary—and which are evolutionary, arising from deeper changes? Now, The Wired Tower brings together today's leading thinkers and doers to assess the new realities of the Internet in higher education.

Blackboard Inc. Chairman Matthew Pittinsky identifies four key drivers of technology-related change in higher education: the renewed focus on teaching and learning, technology's movement from "back office" to "front office," the search for new funding, and the pressure and opportunity to serve new enrollments and markets.

The book includes a provocative, skeptical contribution from leading social theorist Neil Postman, and concludes with a preview of the Internet-based learning trends likely to have the most profound impact.

Edited by Matthew Serbin Pittinsky
With Contributions by:
Arthur Levine, Martin Irvine, Greg Cappelli, Carol A. Twigg, Donald Spicer, and Neil Postman

About the Editor

MATTHEW SERBIN PITTINSKY is Chairman of Blackboard Inc. As Blackboard's founding CEO and chief education strategist, Pittinsky has been a visible and widely respected leader helping to shape the higher education e-learning industry. With more than 2,300 schools, colleges, and universities in 140 countries using its software, Blackboard is one of the largest technology companies connecting the power of the Internet to education

Mr. Pittinsky has served on numerous panels and presented at industry conferences for organizations such as the Harvard Business School, the Software Publishers Association, and EDUCAUSE. A first time book editor, he has authored numerous articles and has been quoted in major media outlets, including The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and BusinessWeek.

In 2001, Ernst & Young named Pittinsky and Blackboard co-founder Michael Chasen "Entrepreneurs of the Year for Emerging Companies" in Washington, D.C. In addition, they were both honored as "Young Innovators" by the Kilby Awards Foundation, a distinction shared by Vint Cerf, Marc Andreessen, and Linus Torvalds.

Mr. Pittinsky earned his masters degree in education policy at Harvard University Graduate School of Education. He serves on the advisory boards of SMARTHINKING and Syllabus2000, and on the Board of Trustees of American University.