CHAIR PERSONS: ACADEMIC SENATE

Utilizing Emerging Technologies

At the recent CSU Academic Technology Planning Conference, faculty, staff, and administrators from each of the CSU campuses had an opportunity to discuss some of the barriers to utilizing emerging technologies in higher education. Funding and high faculty workloads are often-cited impediments to a faculty member’s ability to employ new technology in the learning environment. Student access and ability to purchase new technology is also a factor.

A student technology fee might help defer or make the costs more manageable for students and faculty. At San Jose State, students in a pilot program will be able to lease high-end computer notebooks for three years for $1,000 ($167 each semester, no interest). Students will have the latest programs and the technical support/repair included in the lease. The notebooks are wireless, enabling students to interact with the professor and with other students wherever they may be. The notebooks can be hardwired or docked at home, eliminating the need and cost of a second desktop computer. Participating professors are given a free notebook computer.

Whenever a professor teaches a new course or adopts a new approach to teaching, there will be successes and failures. The key is to reward exploration into new teaching techniques and provide the resources and technical support necessary to improve student knowledge, attitudes, and skills. Why would a successful and untenured professor want to experiment with new teaching techniques and/or technology that could negatively impact RTP? The current RTP process does little to reward the substantial effort it takes to learn new programs and design computer-assisted courses, especially when success may or may not result.

One professor who designed a now-famous computer-assisted program to help students learn Chinese characters indicated that, after three years, it was clear that the program was successful for upper-division students but not for first-year students. Another professor had students composing and playing music on a computer in 10 weeks in an introduction to appreciation of music course.

College departments are often isolated nation states, with few incentives to work cooperatively. Funding is often tied to the number of students or number of professors in a departmental unit. Professors teach in arbitrarily fixed hourly units, leaving little room for interdisciplinary or shared teaching experiences for students. An open learning community is one of the hallmarks of the new online community. With current technology, it is possible to team-teach, be interdisciplinary, and engage the public and private sectors in education. The current workload allocation system remains stuck in the tar pits. The workload allocation formula should be revised to allow for innovation and creativity in cooperative learning communities.

Technology must not be viewed as a substitution for good teaching. Most good teachers find that technology is a teaching aid, requiring practice and careful use to be effective. It takes time and practice to effectively use a new tool. Technology should not be viewed as a means to increase student-faculty ratios or efficiency, as one CSU president at the conference suggested. The new technology allows for more interaction with students and other learners, demanding more, not less, time with each student. Information overload with Web-based resources requires that new skills be taught to enable students to differentiate scholarship from sham.

The academic technology conference was exciting. I imagined my students reading an assigned Supreme Court case and choosing to walk into a virtual courtroom, looking on as the lawyers presented the case and the judges asked probing questions. The students could interact with other students while in the virtual courtroom and choose to return to the assigned reading when ready. The students in the virtual courtroom might be visited by other students in the same class or by students at distant locations. Imagine a virtual conversation with Justices Oliver Wendell Holmes, William Douglas, or Thurgood Marshall!

An environment that encourages exploration and utilization of new teaching techniques should be fostered and encouraged through the RTP process and the granting of release time.

Paul Persons, Academic Senate