CollabrATEC

Johnny Lee a student at Carnegie Mellon University has developed a low cost system for creating an interactive, multi-point whiteboard. He uses a pen light (infrared) for front or rear projected displays. 

You can find out more about the low cost system at his website.

Sun Microsystems Online Collaboration System

Project Wonderland a toolkit for building online collaborative communities is available for download from Sun Microsystems. Sun is currently using this system to collaborate between workers in disparate locations. This virtual workspace has been said to house 50% of their workforce on any given day. The faculty at Ngee Ann Polytechnic University have used this toolkit to create a virtual campus and will be testing the system this fall.

The Microsoft Surface is an attempt to employ touch technology into the vendors portfolio.
However, are they really putting a sustainable effort behind this technology and are just hedging their bets by investing in N-Trig? Or do they see themselves behind the technology curve when it comes to multi-touch and have become just a part of the herd and why don’t they focus on the power of Multi-Touch technology for collaboration?

Daniel L. Goroff has written an interesting article “The Future of Higher Education: Technology and the College “.
This article compares the current state of education technology to the changes seen in naval technology with the advent of ironclads and  steam power. An interesting comparison of the old guard to the neophytes.

The edustyle site is a resource for designers working with educational institutions.

The emphasis seems to be on “Campus Web” design for higher educaation.

The focus of many of these sites is recruitment.

However, you can survey the exterior pages of some sites extranet areas.