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Opinion
Beginning the Third Decade
5/1/2004
But are their classrooms—and is the classroom experience—so different from what I experienced as an undergraduate three decades ago? To be sure, some of the physical trappings are different: LCD projectors have replaced overhead projectors and many students take notes on computers or PDAs. But the “in-class, on-task” activities seem remarkably similar to my own experiences as a college student: lectures, group discussion, and student presentations.
So how, then, do we address the continuing questions about technology and instruction? What are the appropriate metrics for tracking the instructional integration of information technology? Number of URLs in the syllabus? Use of a course management system? Online content and assessment? Number of PowerPoint presentations? Hits on the course Web site and average session time?
Do efforts to quantify aspects of IT in instruction accurately reflect the all-important qualitative dimensions and impact of IT in the curriculum?
These are really important questions. Alas, we in the campus community don’t have very good answers. As I stated in last month’s column, too often the best we can offer is evidence by epiphany.
So here’s my prediction: much as the past two decades have been marked by academe’s great aspirations for the role of technology in instructions and operations, this decade may be marked by efforts to make institutions accountable for the continuing (and rising) investment in IT. Inquiring minds—board members and public officials, parents, and even some faculty—will focus on two questions: (1)Why don’t faculty do more with technology? and (2) Why don’t colleges and universities make better use of information technology in campus operations and services?
As we enter the third decade of the “computer revolution” in higher education, these seem like fair, timely, and, yes, admittedly difficult questions that we in the campus community will have to address.
Kenneth C. Green, visiting scholar at The Claremont Graduate University, is the founding director of The Campus Computing Project, a comprehensive, continuing study of the role of information technology at higher education institutions in the United States (www.campuscomputing.net).
View more articles by Kenneth Green.
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