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Classroom Focus
10 Tips for Injecting New Technology into Your Campus
3/26/2008
Introducing new technologies to faculty members can be a challenge--they are often simply too busy or don't see the point of mastering yet another tool. At San Diego State University, IT Services Director James Frazee and Associate Director of Instructional Technology Services Jim Julius have developed a number of techniques that their department has used to successfully bring new technology into SDSU learning environments.
As an example, Julius described the various stages in a multi-year project to introduce classroom clickers to faculty and students. The instructional technology services group used a range of techniques to gradually introduce the new technology, thereby working to ensure buy-in from both faculty and students. Introducing technology successfully is a favorite subject of Julius, who wrote his doctoral dissertation on faculty development and adoption of new technologies. Here are ten tips for introducing a new tool or technology, based on successes that SDSU's IT services department has had.
1. Move quickly, before preferences are staked out.
Deciding on a technology standard early can help avoid cases of faculty who have already settled on a favorite tool and are reluctant to change. In the case of remote control classroom performance systems, or clickers, interest from SDSU professors pushed the university to consider standardizing quickly, since early adopters were already trying out various products in classrooms, meaning students might have to buy more than one clicker.
Conversely, moving quickly doesn't apply with larger, more complex products and technologies, Julius pointed out. With clickers, it worked well because the technology is inexpensive and easy to use. With a longer learning curve and more expensive product, moving too quickly can backfire, Julius said.
2. Make the selection process inclusive of students, faculty and staff.
The IT services group at SDSU has used its process for selecting and introducing several new technologies, including a web conferencing tool, its portal technology, and clickers. Regardless of the product, it's important, Julius stressed, to include representatives of everyone who will use the tool.
To make the process more inclusive. Julius said, "publish, raise awareness, involve the faculty--let early adopters become conduits" to help convince peers of the value of a new technology.
3. Do the product research.
For the clicker project, Julius spent extensive time on the phone early in the process finding out what other schools were doing and saying about clickers. He then pulled together a faculty focus group to rank the list of criteria he had gathered during his research. That group added additional features he hadn't included.
Using his research data and faculty input, Julius then organized a giant matrix illustrating how each clicker system had rated. Two products clearly stood out. Julius brought those clickers to campus for presentations to various potential users--faculty and students. "We wanted to make sure decision-making around new technology was participatory by stakeholders," he said.
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