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Classroom Focus
10 Tips for Injecting New Technology into Your Campus
3/26/2008
As the technology becomes adopted, think about moving users to a type of support that is less hands-on and intensive for IT staff. At SDSU, Julius polled faculty and then set up a simple email list server last spring, at their request.
IT support staff monitor the list, but don't often have to interject. Rather, faculty members support each other. "The model is starting to move to something sustainable, where users are supporting each other," Julius said. Since the university can't support a one-to-one user support model for clickers, he's encouraged by that trend.
10. Remember your goal.
In the case of clickers at SDSU, the saturation rate among professors is still relatively small--just 50 or so are using the eInstruction devices in classes. It's a tiny percent of faculty, Julius admitted, but affects a huge percent of students--and that's really the point. Since clicker use is aimed at large lecture classes, it doesn't take a lot of faculty using the devices to have an impact on students.
Linda L. Briggs is a freelance writer based in San Diego, Calif.
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