An American K-12 cooperative educational services provider (“The Agency”) has an issue: partner school districts are saving money by building internal capacity for professional development, rather than fully utilizing expertise from the Agency. The aim of this evidence-based case study is to inform the Agency on capacity-building for innovation. The researchers performed three separate rapid evidence assessments, followed by a standard systematic review process to synthesize findings across 31 studies. Key findings identified from the research include (1) organizational capacity and program evaluation lead to organizational sustainability, (2) agency leadership should guide strategic organizational change in order to establish a shared vision for evaluation and feedback, and (3) organizations benefit from practicing continuous and ongoing learning through feedback loops. The findings of this study may be generalizable to other similar educational service providers or non-profits looking to strengthen organizational capacity and partnerships.

The growth in technology tools and their uses continues to grow at an exponential pace. Whether it is for personal or professional use technology is everywhere, and it is ubiquitous. It is changing the way we seek knowledge, interact with information, and process the world around us to construct our learning pathways. Technology has made it simple for us to be consumers of information, but how do we evaluate and synthesize this information to construct meaning and create value? The technology test kitchen is a curated and managed makerspace designed for exploratory installation where novices and experts engage in deep, meaningful, constructive uses of technology for teaching and learning. The goal of the test kitchen is acquisition of “native-expert” use of technology in support of authentic learning, engendering deeper levels of technological fluency within a constructivist professional development experience.

Instant messaging and text chat, online collaborative whiteboards, web conferencing and other synchronous Web 2.0 tools are increasingly finding their way into higher education and are available in both commercially-branded and open source varieties. This chapter describes best practices and challenges in using these new tools, focusing on free and open source software for synchronous course delivery, collaboration, learning activities, and technical support, based on the author’s experience in online teaching and online-teaching support. Synchronous tools can provide immediate and efficient communication for instructors, learners and support staff, fostering community and establishing a heightened sense of social presence. An increasing number of practitioners in the field of distance learning are using synchronous tools to reach their learning and support objectives (Murphy and Rodríguez Manzanares, 2008). Today, free and open-source tools offer similar functionality as costly enterprise systems. This chapter will describe these new open source tools, the types of needs that drive their use, and strategies for effective use and implementation

Instant messaging and text chat, online collaborative whiteboards, web conferencing and other synchronous Web 2.0 tools are increasingly finding their way into higher education and are available in both commercially-branded and open source varieties. This chapter describes excellent practices and challenges in using these tools for synchronous and blended course delivery, collaboration, learning activities, and technical support, based on the author’s experience in online education and online-teaching support. Synchronous tools can provide immediate and efficient communication for instructors, learners and support staff, foster community and establish a heightened sense of social presence. An increasing number of practitioners in the field of distance learning are using synchronous tools to reach their learning and support objectives (Murphy and Rodríguez Manzanares, 2008). Today, institutions have a whole menu of synchronous tools to choose from, ranging from free and open-source software to more costly commercial enterprise systems. These tools enable education and support for teaching and learning to happen across great distances and on all types of mobile and not-so-mobile computer devices. This chapter will describe some of these tools, the types of needs that drive their use, and strategies for effective use and implementation.

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