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SPECIAL DOUBLE FEATURE! Academic MP3s >> Is It iTime Yet?

2/28/2006

By Mikael Blaisdell

iMotivation

Beyond the above issues is another, more serious complaint: lack of appreciation for the increase in the teacher workload that may be generated by the use of iPods in the classroom.

Increased workload. “I was one of the first faculty to use iPods in higher education,” says one professor, who prefers not to be named. “My record of successful use of iPods to achieve specific course goals and objectives is quite well established. However, despite my various successes, I might not be using iPods anymore, after this academic year.” The reason? According to this instructor, the administration d'es not recognize the workload implications of using the latest technology. “I teach two kinds of classes,” he says. “Ones that employ a moderate level of extremely labor-intensive technology, and ones that involve my coming to class with nothing but a book and a piece of chalk,” he says. “In my course load, these two kinds of courses weigh equally, despite the obvious fact that the former takes easily three to four times as much prep time.”

Recognize effort. Dayton’s Skill recognizes the critical factor of faculty motivation. “If you don’t fully integrate the technology into the curriculum, and also recognize the prep effort as part of the workload of the faculty, the effort is not going to continue. At the end of the day, what are faculty members being evaluated on?”

GC&SU’s Wolfgang agrees. “For a long time in higher ed, if it wasn’t research, it didn’t count toward tenure or promotion.” He thinks that the time has come to revise the performance evaluation standards appropriately. “We need to see some weight being put on these kinds of skills and abilities, and credit given toward raises, promotion, and tenure.”

At GC&SU, Professor of Mathamatics Lila Roberts is taking the iPod into new areas, and also emphasizes the importance of motivation. “It’s pretty obvious that the iPod has excellent applications in foreign language, history, art and music appreciation, etc.,” she says. “However, it has equally valuable but less-obvious applications in areas such as mathematics and science. Versatility and portability make the iPod—especially the video-enabled iPod—a potentially invaluable teaching and learning tool. Administrations that wish to implement an iPod program—or any program that involves extreme technology—need to recognize that careful development of effective technology tools is a tremendous drain on faculty resources (ingenuity and time), and development of this type needs to be recognized in the reward and merit structure within the institution.”

Champions. Skill sees a familiar pattern emerging in the integration of the iPod and its related technologies into the higher education environment. He calls it the “champion model,” and points out that while it can be useful, it has its limitations. “When I started doing technology as an administrator, I took full advantage of the champion model,” he says. “For someone who’s really interested in a piece of technology, willing to spend the time to learn it, and sees it as exciting, that technology builds on an individual’s own curiosity and so that person is willing to put a lot into it. But the champion model in higher education is not a sustainable model.”

Tipping point. And while faculty recognition and reward are significant concerns, says Skill, there is an even more fundamental issue: “The big challenge is going to be whether the curriculum and the faculty involved in curriculum development are ready to rethink the way they are doing things.” According to GC&SU’s J.J. Hayden, instructional technology coordinator and assistant professor at the School of Education, “The whole idea of being able to use video and audio, and capture and organize it, is reaching the tipping point. The question is: When will the faculty realize that we’ve tipped?”

iStrategy

Pedagogical opportunity. Dorothy Leland, GC&SU president, weighs in on the iPod. “Using a new technology to deliver instruction requires considerable faculty work. This work involves learning about the functionalities of the technology and its academic applications. But it also involves rethinking course objectives and learning outcomes in light of the new pedagogical opportunities that the technology provides.” Leland sees the iPod as a powerful tool in transforming the site of learning from the desk to the pocket: In this new mode, instruction is no longer confined to a limited number of physically stationary sites (e.g., classroom, library, lab, or home office), but can occur almost anywhere a student may be. “This location-independent access to digital multimedia material means that the delivery of instruction is less dependent on time and place,” she says. “The iPod technology also offers the potential to shift the proportion of class time devoted to learning that benefits from face-to-face interactions between faculty and students, and shift preparatory work to outside times and locations.”

Time shifting. An example of the concept that Wolfgang and Leland call “time shifting” can be seen in a GC&SU course on Shakespeare. “The students each were given the assignment to read a piece and record it on the iPod,” reports Wolfgang. “The recordings were then shared with the other students so that they could listen to them outside of class, critiquing each other via WebCT [www.webct.com]; then they debated it when they got to class.” Wolfgang thinks that the iPod technology not only easily enabled the time-shifting of the content and the work, but also made it more interesting to the students. “It wasn’t the old ‘get up and read your speech’ stuff,” he points out.

Expanding the classroom, and connecting. The iPod’s potential is also a factor in two other strategic philosophical concepts being discussed at GC&SU: the perception of higher education as a 24/7 environment, and the need to build community among the students. Noting that the mission of the university is to create intelligent, curious, informed thinkers and communicators, GC&SU’s Gormly remarks, “Students are probably learning more outside the classroom than they are in it.” Gormly sees the iPod as an especially useful tool in the overall mission that extends beyond the classroom, and particularly as a way to get the students connected. GC&SU’s new iVillage is an experiment in using the iPod and its related tools to knit a group of students into a community even though they do not share the same dormitories. “For new students, coming together is the biggest challenge,” Gormly explains. “But 18 or 24, they have to find their place in the new environment.”

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