Today’s post is brought to you by guest blogger Gabby Hyman.

Taking their cues from successful online colleges, major universities are wiring up their course offerings and connecting to far-flung students across the globe. PC Magazine recently released its list of the top ten plugged-in, high-tech campuses in the country, and the features the magazine loved most (surprise!) match the communication and instruction tools that online colleges have been using for nearly a decade now.

Some 240 colleges offering traditional, campus-based degree programs answered the survey sent out by PC Magazine and the Princeton Review. In order, the following universities took top honors as the “most wired:”

• Villanova University
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.)
• Indiana University
• Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania
• Creighton University in Nebraska
• The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• Michigan Technological University
• University of Southern California
• Quinnipiac University in Connecticut
• University of Oklahoma

Modeling Features Taken from Online Schools
Villanova was chosen first, because it offers laptops to all new students and 24-hour tech support. M.I.T. took second place, offering a fully wireless campus and open courseware. Third-place winner Indiana University received a shout-out for its online discussion forums, streaming multimedia, and a secure Internet.

Other popular online features include podcast lectures (Creighton University), 24/7 tech support by phone (Swarthmore College), and online lectures, tests, and grade reports (Villanova). Students are using new digital access to upload paper drafts to mainframe storage sites or post off-campus ride requests on bulletin boards.

The trend in wiring up traditional schools to offer online features has caught fire. Approximately 75 percent of American colleges and universities currently offer online degree programs, and others include online learning as a component in a hybrid on-campus/online experience.

An estimated four million students are enrolled in online learning, with another 30 percent plugging in each year. Many online colleges, universities, and trade schools already offer online lectures, discussion boards, chat rooms, streaming lectures, class enrollment, library access, and collaborative workspace. Some provide laptops as part of their comprehensive registration fees. It’s just a matter of speculation as to what new “wired” services schools will be offered in the future and if online schools will continue to lead the way.