Should we strive to become High-Tech Campuses?
I wonder if it makes sense for every educational institution to strive to achieve the High-tech status mentioned in chapter 2 of the Ko and Rossen book. I'm beginning to believe that focusing on good online pedagogy and student management skills is more important in the beginning than trying to buy the latest and greatest software. The "if you build it they will come" theory has been very ineffective in my career. I think that we rate too many programs based on their technology and not their teaching. Don't get me wrong. I do believe in consistent Learning Management Systems. Students need a comfortable familiar environment to learn in. My issue comes with the integration of high bandwidth technologies such as streaming media. A poor quality video of an instructor lecturing in front of a whiteboard defeats the spirit of good andragogy. Multisession interactive video chats are extremely difficult to implement, but they do have a nice 'wow' factor when the administration sees it at a conference. The question is will anyone be willing to go through the pain to use it. Most instructors are already taxed. I am attaching a link to a study that discusses this point. You may have to be patient as the site seems to go up and down quite a bit.http://technologysource.org/article/technological_minimalism_in_distance_education/
posted by Dallas Becker @ 6:39 AM
2 Comments:
Additionally, students seem to prefer courses with a lower multimedia content (Terry, 2000).
I have no problem believing that. There seems to be no way to avoid the huge amount of time it takes to view multimedia content; whereas, if I were reading a huge textbook and were a good test taker, I could skim the material, read the summaries and leading sentences, listen in class most of the time, and make a good grade on the test. So, as you asked in an earlier blog, does that make those instructors stupid?
As the article in your reference stated, “Access to complex and expensive technology is a serious issue, as is adequate training and support for teacher and learner.” I believe that adequate training and support for the teacher is the key to the entire issue of when, not if, education will become totally integrated with technology.
I, too, do not believe in a “if you build it, they will come” theory. The technology used is going to have to be the “right technology” for the “right student” at the “right time”. Now that is a challenge. And you asked, “is will anyone be willing to go through the pain to use it. Most instructors are already taxed.” I doubt if all of them will. But I think that as the students of today, who expect immediate gratification for everything they do, become the teachers of tomorrow, video games and other technological wonders will become the norm in the classroom.
Dallas, your comments resonated with me, especially with the drive to have as high a technology level as possible at all levels of education. At least some of it is not even driven by educators or good research evidence. It doesn't take long to see that education is Big business with a capital "B" and there are a lot of players in the game trying to sell their technology. In one of our earlier courses, I recall having to do a needs assessment, then finding a matrix that would allow a very objective evaluation of software (or other technology) that could meet those needs best. So much of the hype surrounding software is really that: hype, and it takes a very knowledgeable person or committee to separate the wheat from the chaff. I'm sure that you, as technology director, see that every day.
An article entitled, "Serving Underserved Communities with Instructional Technologies" (Clark, Kevin; Urban Education, v40 n4 p430-445 Jul 2005 (EJ689465)) made the point well when it was cited that technology adoption should "begin focusing on the needs of the community rather than the implementation of the technology (Anderson & Melchior, 1995)".
I searched the literature at length and couldn't immediately find any specific research on the application of "low" technology applications in schools, but intuitively you know that it takes place. Most teachers are likely to apply whatever level of technology that they have available. However, it probably becomes much more important in high school for college-bound students to be exposed to a wide variety of higher-technology, since both the universities and businesses that hire university students apply higher technology.
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