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Should Professors Be Required To Teach With Tech?
An anonymous reader writes "Are professors who don't update their teaching methods like doctors who fail to keep up with the latest ways to treat disease? Or are professors better off teaching old-school? From the article: 'It is tough to measure how many professors teach with technology or try other techniques the report recommends, such as group activities and hands-on exercises. (Technology isn't the only way to improve teaching, of course, and some argue that it can hinder it.) Though most colleges can point to several cutting-edge teaching experiments on their campuses, a recent national assessment called the Faculty Survey of Student Engagement suggests that old-school instruction remains the norm. Only 13 percent of the professors surveyed said they used blogs in teaching; 12 percent had tried videoconferencing; and 13 percent gave interactive quizzes using 'clickers,' or TV-remotelike devices that let students respond and get feedback instantaneously. The one technology that most teachers use regularly — course-management systems — focuses mostly on housekeeping tasks like handing out assignments or keeping track of student grades.'"
Yes. Not because it's inherently better (it's not), but because it's what students can expect to be exposed to for the rest of their lives/careers. So they might as well become used to it.
Tech isn't always needed, for example, my history lectures didn't need VTC, interactive quizzes, or blogs.
Technology doesn't always need to be used.
Teachers should not be required to teach tech. The only areas I can see where tech would help things are in engineering or science classes. But even in a science class, you are just using a computer as a data-logger, that's it. Math shouldn't be using tech, as the students should be learning how to do the math without the tech. Computers only help out in crazy high level classes where you have to start doing things like matrix manipulations, etc. Do I care that my teacher does or doesn't have a blog? No, that's silly. If they want to post office hours on a website, fine, go right ahead. Video-conferencing? Practically worthless in the teaching environment.
There is no sense in demanding "tech" to be included for what ever reason! Just because "tech" is used does not make a lecture better.
Not the methods.
In short, yes.
Teachers need to embrace the digital age. Are you going to be sick, late, etc? Give me an option to get a text message and an email. Does your course absolutely require me to be in a seat? If not, let met telecommute. I could go on...
Teaching is fundamentally a human activity. The best way to ensure quality teaching is to hire good teachers. A crappy teacher who keeps a class blog or uses videoconferencing is still a crappy teacher. A good teacher who stands in front of the class and engages the students using nothing more than chalk and a blackboard is still a good teacher.
Technology is all but irrelevant here, but it's trendy to propose it as a way to improve education because it skirts the real issue of hiring excellent teachers, and allows administrators to throw money at the problem in the form of tech budgets.
...really sucks. I'd like to see more schools adopt testing methods that allow students to write code during exams the way that code is meant to be written - with a computer!
I've seen profs use tablet PCs and every other dumb tool and the unanimous opinion of teachers and students alike is that overhead projectors and powerpoint are good enough for most teaching. Anything else accomplishes nothing extra but costs more $$.
By all means introduce those in education to new and innovative methods in teaching, be it tech based or otherwise. Show them how it works, how to use it, and the benefits of using those methods.
However, leave it at their discretion to decide if method/tech X is suitable for their classroom. That they are on your payroll suggests you trust them to make such decisions.
Requiring Professors to teach by certain techniques is certainly going to lead to disaster. While in surgery, newer procedures are almost always a measurable improvement over previous procedures in some way (time, cost, success rate, whatever), I feel it that its simply too difficult to quantify the 'success' of various techniques. Especially when the success depends so much on the course material, professors, and the students. For example, I could hardly imagine Calculus I being improved with video conferencing or blogs.
What benefit would forcing professors to teach integration with powerpoints bring? If anything, I believe there are entire concepts which are better taught on a chalkboard, not with powerpoints or slides. Things where the process matters (like integration, or physics problems) where simply seeing the steps laid out before you seems to miss out on some of the 'magic'. I really feel this because I've just completed a term where I had a calc prof teaching all on chalkboard, and a physics prof who had most of the material laid out in powerpoint, and would fall back to the board when asked a question, or having to elaborate.
There is nothing wrong with encouraging profs to try something new. Provide them with resources and information on new ways to teach. Don't force them. You'll likely just end up with a bunch of profs pissed off at the university admin, and classfuls of bored students.
That said, I do find the use of the clickers really useful. I do wish more courses/profs used them.
The "doctors" analogy seems dangerously weak. In theory, when a new drug/surgery/device comes out, it has undergone an FDA approval process, which includes a bunch of safety and efficacy testing. The process is imperfect, and can be marred by relatively small sample sizes, or shenanigans on the part of companies who really want to sell new, shiny, patented stuff, rather than generic old stuff; but it theoretically provides a degree of assurance that newer offers at least some improvements, at least in some situations. Therefore, a doctor who isn't aware of the new stuff is pretty clearly inferior to one who is.
Educational technology, on the other hand, is required to undergo precisely no testing of any kind(aside from basic electrical safety and not catching fire type stuff), and frequently receives very little. The vendor is always terribly enthusiastic, of course, and there may or may not be a study or two of dubious quality; but the adoption is driven much more by optimism and hype than by data. Since there is pitifully little testing, the idea that newer=better is largely nonsense.
As TFA notes, certain technologies that are more or less unequivocally superior have been widely adopted by all but the most fossilized. CMSs beat the hell out of distributing photocopies and shuffling paper. They have largely replaced the distribution of photocopied stuff, with the common exception of the near-ceremonial "handing out of the syllabus on the first day". Similarly, computers are largely superior to typewriters for working with text, and both are more legible by far than handwriting, so most documents are now written on a computer(though, for markup/editing/grading, handwriting is still competitive).
If you are going to "require" something, you had better have good reason to believe that it is the better way to go.
No. There has been tons of research in this area and none has been very positive to technology.
On a much more personal and anecdotal note, I have taken classes at a "modern" college that did everything using IT (*in an IT course no less) and I've also taken courses where they used a black/white board, and I learned much more in the latter. Further, I believe that a teacher who has a poor grasp of the technology they're using just should skip it - nothing worse than some idiot putting 100% of their course material into PowerPoint and assuming that is enough.
Professors should teach with whatever medium they feel most comfortable with. As a student, I am there to learn the concepts and ideas they are providing. Anything that gets in the way of that transfer of knowledge is a bad thing.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
I think professors should be required to teach with TeX, but maybe that's only me.
Are students who fail to learn via old school methods only in school because the tech helped them get there? Are they only capableof learning one way? Sounds like they deserve to fail?
Specific teaching technologies should definitely not be mandated by the university administration. This is not so much because I doubt the utility of all new teaching technologies -- some are no doubt quite useful, others complete garbage -- so much as because I severely doubt the ability of educrats to mandate the actually-useful tools.
If not, and if it doesn't make the teachers' lives any easier, what's the point?
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Teachers should use the best method to teach the subject. Mandating specific technologies focuses on a means, but not necessarily the best means to the end.
But also be able to use a blackboard. For some things the latter is just a lot better. Teaching with prepared slides (no matter what type) carries a huge risk of not saying enough or going though the material too fast. I have seen countless bad lectures and talks that resulted from this. If you write in real-time, e.g. on a blackboard, you not only have good timing, but you actually need to understand what you are talking about. Too many people using prepared presentations do not and waste their audience's time.
So, no, do not force teaching style on anybody. It is a very bad idea.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
I mean the one tech I think they should use is a video camera or similar device to tape the lecture but then again that would probably encourage stupid students to skip the lecture and watch it later. (But it would be a boon for us that went to the lecture, missed a point in the lecture and want to go back and see it again.) Other than that most of the time I don't think the tech would help.
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
Different profs have different styles of teaching and communicating. Different technologies lend themselves well (or not) to different courses. PowerPoint slides work only so long as they are distributed to the students, but often cause the class to be taught too fast to take detailed notes. A blog wouldn't be useful at all for many courses. Would you find a blog on Roman history useful? What current events would the prof be responding to? How about a course on physics or compilers or crystal structures or genetics? How exactly would a blog help there?
Are the students technically inclined? If not, using technical resources may hurt more than it helps.
What really matters is if the prof can give clear explanations that students who learn in different ways can understand, whether or not the course is paced appropriately for the students, whether it is sufficiently advanced, but not so advanced that the students can't comprehend what is going on, whether assignments teach the students more of what they need to know, whether grading and feedback are timely and helpful, etc. It's not about throwing the latest technology at the students. That doesn't help at all unless it actually enhances how the students learn, or how effectively the prof can deliver the material!
Whether technology can be useful depends entirely on the course and what it's trying to teach. I've taken courses that were taught very well with Powerpoint. Yet those same courses could be taught as well using traditional means. Some courses would really suck with Powerpoint, while yet others could benefit.
Wikis? Blogs? Again: Maybe. Depends on the course.
One thing I always hate about these discussions is the issue of students getting bored/falling asleep is always brought up. There are two sides to the coin: Yes, the professor should make all attempts to make the class interesting. And yes, the student should be flexible enough to learn from different styles. If he/she is falling asleep, it's not a given that the professor is to blame: Education is not a spectator sport.
More importantly, whether they fall asleep or not has virtually nothing to do with technology.
Finally: The article fails to mention the most important point: In today's (US) universities, professors have no incentive to become better educators, and are more interested in getting their next grant.
Beetle B.
I use AdobeConnect, instant messenger, a blog, CITRIX, a variety of open source tools, and a bunch more but I am a technology professor. I don't use powerpoints with bullets (presentation zen?) and I hate snore fest lectures more than my students.
Telling professors to use tech is like telling a mechanic to use a crescent wrench. What is the context of the learning environment and what are the learning outcomes? I tailor my educational strategy to the educational outcomes. Critical thinking skills, don't need flashy graphics if linear processes are the desired result.
Heck. I'd be happy if my students simply read the text book, and additional reading. When I assign a reading on the web half the time I get complaints that I didn't print it and pass it out in class. Some of my students say 100 pages of reading a week is to much homework. These are the same students bragging before class that they spend 50-60 hours a week play the latest MMORPG.
--- Location Unknown
The summary asks two separate questions and then somehow magically links them together as if both questions can only ever by answered by the same answer.
Q1: Should professors use technology to teach?
Q2: Should professors stay up to date with teaching methodology.
Teaching methodology != technology. It may do in some cases, but it won't in most.
p.s. AFAIC, A1=No, A2=Yes.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Maybe it is just me, but the students who want everything online, including the course notes and videos of the lectures, overwhelmingly just support that idea because they don't want to go to class. Sure, maybe they actually want to learn (unlikely), and maybe they are actually great self-studyers with lots of motivation (even more unlikely). I'm not even saying they learn anything from going to class, or that going to class is inherently better. All I'm saying is that they will support anything that means less hours physically in class, and haven't put much thought into whether or not it is actually better for them. They just see an opportunity to use tech buzzwords to support the agenda of sleeping in.
Then there are the people who simply push stuff with buzzwords so that they sound smart and feel like they are accomplishing something. They aren't thinking much about the repercussions of it either.
I'm not saying there aren't benefits to tons of tech and everything online, but neither category of person listed above really listens to any negatives, and will actively avoid intelligent discussion on the topic. So it is hard to take them seriously.
There's just two medium-tech tools that I use for my courses:
Two years ago I stopped printing and distributing the lecture notes, since they are available on the web page. Nobody complained -- some students print them out on their own, but most of them are happy to just consult them online.
This is the dumbest thing I've seen lately. Figures it's from education activists. I didn't think they could screw things any more than they have but apparently they're still at it.
Blogging? Taking tests with clickers? These people are pathetic. Please don't tell me we're paying for these a$$hats.
rd
As a faculty member who has been involved with web-based coursework, online lectures, and the integration of laptops in the classroom, I am less than impressed with most technology-based pedagogical "innovations".
It's not that teachers are typically anti-technology (although some certainly are), but instead that most teachers realize that adding technology does not necessarily improve the teaching experience, and in many cases can even be a distraction. There's a reason why the Socratic method of the lecturer standing in front of a classroom full of students has persisted so long - it works. It is very hard to beat the teaching effectiveness of a good instructor who can expand on concepts and formulate new examples on the fly, based on the questions asked during a lecture. Furthermore, technology cannot make bad teachers into good teachers, no matter how much money you throw at the problem. The man or woman in front of the class makes all the difference. Most tech-based classroom techniques are generally introduced with great fanfare, but generally fall by the wayside within a few years as everyone realize that they are more trouble than they're worth, i.e. too much time and money involved with no measureable improvement in student comprehension of the subject.
Most faculty are happy enough to use the web to distribute material to the class, or to post grades, but beyond that point you hit diminishing returns very quickly. I don't even try to post my class notes online, because I learned long ago that most students tend not to grasp the material unless you force them to create their own class notes. Beyond the current use of the web to distribute course materials, there are two pieces of technology that I would personally welcome to the classroom:
(1) A pen-based tablet with the ease of use of the Apple UI, for taking class notes. I'm not talking about the Windows / Wacom / OneNote tablets which still haven't gotten it right after years of attempts, but an entirely new concept that is more akin to the iPad experience.
(2) A augmented / virtual reality technology that would enable students to remotely "attend" a class with the same 360-degree audio-visual experience as physically being in the room. That's still a few years in the future, but I think it could make a big impact to education, as it would enormously multiply the effectiveness of good lecturers.
Given: "technology" is possibly necessary for good instruction.
Given: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Conclusion: The authors want magical professors.
"Learn what the boss wants and give it to them."
Mastering this all important skill is somewhat dependent on professors all being rather different in their teaching styles. Standardizing instruction to include certain kinds of high tech gear just reduces classroom variety and gives students tunnel vision, at least in regards to the pathway to classroom success.
But simply moving your stack of notes to Powerpoint is beyond worthless- it wastes your time and adds nothing at all to the content of the course. Outside the classroom stuff like blogs and videoconferencing can be amazingly useful if you want to correspond with people around the world, but there's really not many good reasons to use stuff like discussion forums when you have a class of 10 people- why not just discuss face to face? We're spending a ton of time moving to a new course management system this year, but it's a plumbing application now- it makes doing routine chores easier and helps with distributing reserves and such, but there are very few serious pedagogy changes when using them. (We have a few exceptions, but 75% of the use is reserves, handouts and collecting papers)
Look at things that can improve the way you teach, to do something you *can't* do without tech. Don't just assume it's great because it looks shiny
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
I think like in any other situation, you simply have to weigh the pros and cons to see if it adds enough value or not. For example, in the real basic scenario of "Do we still use a real chalk board with erasers, or a newer technology to replace them?", there are various options of increasing cost. The schools my kid has been attending dumped the traditional chalkboards in favor of white boards with dry erase markers. Then, they request that each parent supply a package of the dry erase markers as part of the school supply list. I find it a bit irritating, really, because those dry-erase markers are fairly expensive (especially when they specify you only give them a certain name-brand of them, like "Expo"). On the plus side though? I'm pretty sure those white boards erase more cleanly than chalkboards did, and you don't have to mess around with someone going out and clapping the erasers or washing the chalkboard with a sponge and bucket of water all the time. I think they're probably a little easier to read too.
Schools with more of a budget often went to electronic board technologies that let them digitize everything drawn on them, for download to a computer. Exponentially more expensive, but potentially a good value, if used properly.
At the end of the day though, ALL of these technologies do the same basic thing. It's still back to the TEACHER having the ability to convey the information well while drawing information on whichever board is implemented. Whether he/she writes in chalk, dry erase market, or digital light pen --- the content is what a student is paying for.
What works really depends on the professor, the student, and the subject; there's no one-size-fits-all.
Here we go again - 'lets computerize this mess and hope to improve it!' All you get is a computerized mess. But seriously, what does the poster expect his/her bosses to do? Create a razzle dazzle multimedia presentation that highlights your new tasks and responsibilities? Not likely. 'Get this done, and get it done fast'. Clickers during a business meeting? I don't think so. You are there to work, not be entertained or play games. I've seen 30+ years of technology in education and most of the time they prevent learning because there aren't enough computers, the server is down, it takes 15 mins to get everyone started (that is a huge chunk of time for a teacher/professor) Or, being the cynic that I am, maybe colleges will embrace this to recruit more students and charge higher fees. All they care about is their revenue, not whether the students are employable.
It is inherently better. If you're spending half the lecture writing something on the board that could very well be flashed up there in an instant using PowerPoint or similar, you're wasting the students time.
Well, to optimise it further, he just could give you the title and the page of the text book and save everyone to make and display power point slides. Unfortunately, most students are too lazy or too stupid to learn on their own and need someone to do the song and the dance going with the lesson. In the end, it doesn't really matter of the dance is writing on a chalk board or putting everyone to sleep with power point slides, the technology used has nothing to do with the learning success.
I would go so far to say, that someone who can't teach without technology gimmicks is a bad teacher. All the best teachers I met, didn't need it, although some of them liked to used it.
...on a lot of things. Using tech just for the sake of using tech is stupid, of course. For most courses classic teaching methods are really the best their is. But that doesn't mean technology can't be helpful sometimes. Professors should know what is available, so they can chose if something is useful or not for their courses.
Do I want teachers to use technology? Not necessarily. Do I want them to learn and try new techniques for teaching? Hell yes. I had a teacher who tried using a technique he saw from another professor that mainly consisted in short bursts of lectures with the majority of the courses taken up by interactive quizzes. He'd bring up a Powerpoint with questions in relation to the subject at hand, give the students some time to think about it and discuss with their peers, then ask for everyone to show a letter corresponding to their answer choice. He'd then explain the correct answer. Students would read chapters on the subject before going into the course (with a small timed online test to verify that you've indeed read the chapters).
The result? One of the most fun and engaging courses I've ever had. That's a new technique which happens to also use technology in the most effective manner possible. Of course, it really helped that the teacher was a good one (he was relaxed, knowledgeable and would constantly insert jokes in the presentations). It really makes me wish more teachers would go away from the traditional lecturing for two hours straight that makes you bored out of your mind.
Using tech for teaching has been proposed ever since the 8 bit computers hit the world. There never seemed to be any rhyme or reason to this concept apart the vague idea that "it's high tech, therefore it's good". There still isn't. Then comes Salman Khan and his Kahn Academy. Finally here is someone with a passion for teaching who uses the internet and simple tech in such a way that the perceived distance between him and a student is minimal. You can feel his enthusiasm. Salman manages to deliver a lecture and write the notes in the way the best of my lecturers did with a piece of chalk and a black board. Real professors in front of real students don't need any tech in the way. If I have the privilege to be a student in such a situation I want eyeball to eyeball contact with that human. Not a power point to stare at and later download.
I've taught PK through college undergraduate, in nearly every discipline.
1. Societal advances in technology have been largely an effort at efficiency.
2. Educational applications in technology are rarely about increasing efficiency in student learning, but are occasionally about increasing efficiency in materials management for the teacher. Think electronic gradebooks: the reason they are nearly ubiquitous has nothing to do with administrative mandate, but with making things easier for the teacher. It's nothing for the computer to average grades? Weighting by assignment or category? No problem. Doing this with a calculator is a much more complicated proposition.
Electronic whiteboards are catching on for preserving lecture notes, but the real revolution here has passed - it was the change from overhead projector to video projector, especially if accompanied by a document camera. I use my projector ALL THE TIME for lecture notes, video, audio, still pictures - and when I have something to show I haven't captured digitally, I use the document camera.
The web-based communication tools allow me to post assignments and lesson plans online for involved parents and absent students. Video would help this, I suppose, but my classroom thrives on interaction - being a spectator to my lectures without being able to ask questions isn't the riveting experience I wish it would be.
Email allows an asynchronous communication between all of us, as do message board style discussions. These can have value among inquisitive students.
Here's the point, though: really inquisitive students are already doing inquisitive things that eclipse their peers' knowledge without huge effort. Extraordinary students drive their own learning. If I help a student become excited about a subject, and perhaps provide some resources & guidance for their own learning and research, then I've made the most important contribution. After that, it's a different sort of guidance than the "you need to know this so you won't be stupid" sort of instruction.
Ben Carson, head of pediatric neurology at John Hopkins, wrote about figuring out that he learned best by reading, and once he did this, he stopped going to class except for tests and labs. Instead, he read books. He read the assigned material, then read the source material for the assigned material, and then probably read more on top of that.
He redefined the whole field because he knew his strengths as a learner.
Anything technology can do to help a teacher advance that sort of self-knowledge is helpful, possibly important, and maybe even essential.
But if we can't state clearly how a technology will help advance student learning (or even improve teacher efficiency), we have no business expecting teachers to use that technology in their work.
TL;dr: use the best tool for the Learning, not the best tool available.
Conflict of Interest.
While I normally would begin this discussion by putting forth a rather common sense argument (simply put: a good teacher is not good because technology makes him good, but rather because he makes technology work for him), I believe that the discussion is a moot point. Here's why:
The director of the Office of Educational Technology (the agency that published the previously cited report) is Karen Cator. Just read her bio there, and you'll discover that she worked for Apple computer for a decade. Conflict of Interest. The recommendations put forth in this report are invalid, because the director's previous employer stands to gain billions in revenue if the recommendations in this report are implemented nationwide. And what does this director stand to gain by steering billions of taxpayer dollars into the hands of Apple?
Why aren't people buying more iPads?
Please, use that government money to buy iPads for the kids, instead of hiring more, better instructors.
Use it where appropriate. Yes, housekeeping is a good use, why is that looked down on? The ability to post/get assignment, outlines, etc online. The ability to email the professor with a question. But as far as the actual teaching? In many math / science classes, a "chalk and talk" approach works better than simply showing slides (Powerpoint of Latex/pdf), and "smart boards" and the like can get in the way. The background information is available in textbooks (with the assigned readings), and the lecture can be used for going over material and examples.
In math classes, while knowing how to use programs like MATLAB is useful, much more important is understanding the fundamentals behind it first. Otherwise programs like MATLAB, Maple, or graphing calculators become a crutch.
In many lectures (in any discipline), "technology" doesn't add a lot in the lecture by itself. Powerpoint slides, OHP slides, writing notes on the board from the text all have about the same impact.
Working through a MATLAB example in front of the class may be marginally useful (again as a supplement to fundamental learning). Labs are a different story, where hands on with tech that may be the same (or similar) to industry is a useful skill (even if taught on a 5 version behind Windows 98 version).
There's this idea that simply having computers in the class makes more learning happening. I've had classes take place in the computer lab. Most students just surf around on the net and ignored the professor. Likewise any time I see laptops out in a lecture, in most cases it's used as a distraction, not to take notes. The number of laptops were inversely proportional to how engaging the prof was. The more laptops were out, the less attention people were paying to the professor.
Basically there's this ongoing idea that simply throwing technology at education (or any problem) will make it better. That's not the case. It should be used only where there's a tangible benefit.
You forgot Twitter. You can't have a proper classroom without Twitter!
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
We were forced to use that in my math class last semester and most of the students hated it. But the professor was all gung-ho about it.
I have heard the "technology" argument since I was a kid in the 60's and 70's. Ever heard of "Tach-X" or "Controlled Reader"? They were the teaching technology of the day and abysmal failures. Why? Humans are visual and tactile sensors at heart, so seeing, hearing and touching stimulates our brains and allows us to learn. It does not matter the source of the aural or visual stimulation and cognitive processes that in turn get started. Learning requires repetition, so either you had it gone over in detail in class, or you read the material (or perhaps listened to it) many times before it can be actually learned. We also had a thing called the "overhead projector" that allowed material to be slapped up quickly; where do you think PowerPoint and its friends came from? Nothing new under the sun folks. Sure you can present better images, faster and simulations of processes or experiments, but do you really think you will better understand Spencer's "The Faerie Queen" by getting to vote on how you liked its presentation with a little clicker? Nope, only way is through reading/discussing and thinking inside your own brain. That is where learning takes place, not outside you on a screen. And a simple tidbit can show this. The reading level of high school students had been going down for decades. Ever pick up a history book from the 1950's meant for middle school students? The mere complexity of language makes modern textbooks read as if they were written by high school students. In summation, as others stated, technology is a tool and can be used well or ill, but it is no substitute for good planning, good reading lists (which can be on paper or screen) and good presentations + your own efforts.
I would hate to see a professor use a blog. It would be like most little teenage girl's blogs, but you would be required to read it for a grade.
One thing the article didn't mention that's getting more popular (and useful!) is electronic projectors and document cameras. A lot of teachers use these as a whiteboard/blackboard replacement with the added bonus that they're not standing in the way. There's also a nice 'snap photo' button with software that stitches the entire presentation into a .pdf for class notes.
Awesome tech that isn't invasive - try that instead of crazy new experimental gigs!
I don't know where you studied, but I studied basic matrix operations like calculating determinants and inverting matrices in high school in Brazil. More advanced operations, like calculating eigenvalues and eigenvectors, came in my first year in college.
In our modern life technology is very important for learning any subject. Even in social studies you can benefit from tools like search engines. Blogs and discussion groups help you communicate ideas. You cannot have a face to face discussion with someone from the other side of the world, but technology will enrich your life by allowing you to meet different ideas and concepts.
When I come to think of it, there's only one group that wouldn't benefit from the facilities in communications that our modern technology brings us: the religious fanatics.
No, if anything they should be required not to use technology. As a current Computer Science student; I hate classes that "use" tech. The majority of it seems to be for lazy teachers, not to actually improve the learning process for students. Powerpoint presentations just leads to teachers going too fast and not paying attention to the class in front of them. Computer graded HW and clicker quizzes just turns the students into numbers and never helped me learn anything. I took Calc based Physics at two universities. Cornell, where we had homework/tests/quizzes with paper and pencils, and a professor who wrote everything on the chalkboard. My university, where we had a professor who used powerpoint, clicker quizzes, and HW submitted to and graded by a website. The Cornell class was much better. Technology can be used to improve communication with instant messaging and grades posted online, but the old fashioned ways are still superior for the majority of a professors job.
There are two problems with the premise of this article. The first is inherent- while there are clearly better and worse ways to teach (and lectures in particular are usually pretty poor), there is no One Right way to do it. Teaching is like Perl. Different students require different kinds of experiences to learn stuff, and different material lends itself to different forms of teaching. Requiring "tech" is stupid. Teaching is a complex activity requiring specialized knowledge and skills, not just "tech". Requiring that faculty keep abreast of best practices in the field and implement those best practices is probably a good idea. Of course, that's not their job, which brings me to the other problem.
Faculty at prestigious institutions are hired for their understanding of the advanced content in their field, their ability to carry out publishable research in that field, and their ability to secure funding to do more research in that field. In other words: faculty are judged by how well they raise the profile of the institution. Faculty teaching ability is weighted at or near to last place when considering the "quality" of the professor. Sure, a good teacher is a good idea, but anybody spending lots of time on their teaching is taking away time from their research and grantwriting, which are the activities that will lead to tenure, promotion, and other forms of recognition from the broader community.
In short: as long as we keep selecting faculty based on their academic achievements, we will have faculty that's good at research but not good at teaching. No amount of anything will change that- teaching is a difficult job, and simply layering on requirements to use courseware or videoconferencing will not help.
Video recording your lectures for the world to see would be beneficial to humanity. But if every university did it, people could just watch videos instead of going to the universities.
God spoke to me.
I teach on the college level and I don't think it should be required, but suggested. This really depends on the subject area. I teach economics, principles level up to senior level classes. Some of the material is just best learned by hand working out all the details for yourself. That said, when technology is thrown into the mix, we can see different interactions on a different level that are much harder to see via the hand method - just due to time constraints.
Although, some of the higher level econ classes are math intense (calculus and stats can be pre-reqs) and I often get the feeling that many students were taught the material using a certain TI model graphing calculator. If we take that tool away from them, they have no idea what to do... it has basically turned into a crutch for many students instead of a tool that enhances the activity.
For example, if i was told to program on paper for the entire course, that would be awful.
While dry-runs of code are fairly efficient for jotting down quick ideas and debugging, most debugging can be done with computers pretty efficiently these days.
Doing media development with direct tape methods isn't expected in almost any filming companies now, it is almost always done on digital now, even if only backed up on to film afterwards since it is still a better storage method than optical and hard drives.
Doing metalwork theory on paper, while useful at one stage, is only useful at said stage. If that person was forced to do metalwork entirely on paper, that would be pretty crappy. Okay for kids, but adults? No.
Without hands-on experience with the fields you are going to work in and expect to use, the course is essentially useless.
If you can, find somewhere better, if they are going to waste your time with old techniques, it is just as bad as scientists from the 1800s declaring computers demons and (attempting a try at) banning them.
Nobody is going to get a job doing metalwork if their only experience was describing how they'd go about it.
While old techniques are useful in some cases, they are useful merely as a "historical methods" section in the course that just touches on them. If someone wanted to learn the old techniques of, say, filmography, they (the education boards) should make courses dedicated to them, or have an extended module that one can take on in a separate year, after-hours or "summer course". (for an added price of course)
I don't see why they don't, the college i went to had all sorts of extended hours courses running, from touching up on Maths to introductions to other courses.
Of course, i doubt it will happen, the courses will just get longer and longer so they can squeeze even more money out of them. A whole extra year by default is better than optional extended education.
"Only 13 percent of the professors surveyed said they used blogs in teaching; 12 percent had tried videoconferencing; and 13 percent gave interactive quizzes using 'clickers,' or TV-remotelike devices that let students respond and get feedback instantaneously."
Just a few thoughts...
I'm a music professor... and I'm the _music technology_ professor at that. I don't think any of these technologies are appropriate for music teaching -- that's why I don't use them. I do teach blogging in my intro class -- but I don't use a blog to communicate with the students. I think a lot of other faculty members feel the same way -- they don't know how to match up the technology with an appropriate use -- a common problem in universities. They want to invest in technology, but they end up buying the wrong things or implementing things poorly.
I like the course management systems, but I only use it for the gradebook and for handing out readings. Clickers are, IMHO, incredibly stupid. It only proves the students can push a button -- not articulate an intelligent answer. I suppose we could have guest speakers via videoconference... *shrug*.
If anyone has suggestions, I'm all ears!
My university started using them 7 or 8 years ago. They're the biggest boon ever to students who want to skip class.
You just bribe a classmate to bring it with and answer quiz questions for you, and you get all the credit and the teacher thinks you were there. I saw people running four or five clickers in a single class period.
This analogy is lousy. What I don't want to hear from a doctor is "I've poured all my time recently into slick presentations, so I can treat you only with the medical techniques I learned years ago in medical school, but I can explain them in a much less boring way than they were explained to me."
Time for a snack.
Higher tech for the sake of higher tech is the worst thing you can do with technology. It's a scam. Examples:
(1) My home state of Maine gives every kid in school in the state a laptop. It's a scam so someone can say "look, we're hi tech". Teachers waste time on discipline problems, tech breakdown, being forced unnecessarily into using tech-driven instruction so as to not waste the laptops. I'm told that every day there has to be a UPS delivery to every school in the state from Apple with replacement laptops.
(2) Dean at prior college (non-union-strong) had a meeting where he demanded instructors use overhead projectors because of the expense of installing them, so we could show off how high-tech we are. If I put it up to a student vote ("Do you like PowerPoint instruction, or not?" -- "Do you like group projects, or not?") they usually decline. Scam.
Unfortunately, higher education is plagued by the need of education experts/PHDs to make careers/publication by "some new thing", anything whatsoever. That's why you get ridiculous churn in methods, teaching styles, group work, hands-on, technology, etc., etc. And it works hand-in-hand with book publishers who use the same as a reason to churn new book editions every so years, so that old editions can't be re-used.
Here's a completely crazy idea -- base decisions like these on research as to whether it helps students (and not on just whether it makes some salesman/budget-administrator cream in their pants). Does such research exist? Consider this article in the last issue of the AFT's American Educator:
Can research provide any guidelines as to which classroom applications are most effective?... The studies on these point to two conclusions. First, the mere presence of technology in the classroom does not necessarily mean that students learn more. Second -- and, perhaps, a corollary of the first conclusion -- using these technologies effectively is not as obvious as it might seem at first. [American Educator, Summer 2010, Daniel T. Willingham, "Ask the Cognitive Scientist: Have Technology and Multitasking Rewired How Students Learn?", p. 26]
http://www.aft.org/pdfs/americaneducator/summer2010/Willingham.pdf
In short: The "hi-tech uber alles" fetish is, mostly, another in a long series of time & money-wasting scams perpetrated on the education system. There's little or no evidence that it helps student learning, and there is evidence that the time required to manage/prepare/leverage technology resources is directly lost from the educator's other existing duties of teaching, assessment, and feedback.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
I once took a class ( it was in high school ) where the teacher was in the habit of throwing the eraser at sleeping students. Aside from chalk marks, no harm was done to the no longer sleeping student. You can only do that with old technology.
When I went to college lectures, more often than not, the lecturer spent up to a quarter of an hour of the beginning of the lecture trying to hook up his laptop to the auditorium's projector system and getting the PA system to work properly.
And these were classes in Computer Science, mind you ...
So no, tech can even be a hindrance to education.
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
Some of the best lectures I've had were from professors who are just able to go up to a chalkboard and start writing. They usually have a textbook or lecture notes handy for reference, but they understand the material well enough that they can lecture off the top of their head. Technology has nothing to do with it, it's the professors knowledge and their ability to communicate it in their lectures and (hopefully) online lecture notes.
The one "technology" thing which I think all professors should have is a course webpage which includes things like lecture notes, homework assignments, homework and test solutions, and maybe links to useful papers and other references.
I'm split on the idea of blogs. I think that lectures, lecture notes, textbooks, and office hours suffice well for learning the material. But suppose the professor has had a few people asking him the same question, maybe he will write a quick thing about it on his blog so that he doesn't need to get behind schedule by covering it again in the next lecture. But I have doubts about whether it should be an integral part of the instruction process.
The "clickers" are what they use in big lecture classes to try to force students to actually show up when the material is too easy or not interesting enough to keep the students in lecture. It's not even hard to bypass, the simple way is to ask your friend to bring your clicker in class so it looks like you're attending and responding to questions. And there are plenty of students who have hacked these devices so that one remote can act like yours and your 5 friends, or even spoofing a remote on your laptop which waits a few seconds to see what the top answer to the last question was, then selecting that one. And the remotes are expensive to boot, something like $30-50.
Videoconferencing can only alleviate the inconvenience of the professor being out of town and missing the lecture. If the professor wanted to do the best job possible, he wouldn't miss lectures. Unless it refers to the student videoconferencing in presumably because they don't live anywhere near the school, in which case they are missing out on a lot of the one-on-one interactions that make learning and exploring problems easier.
You know, if I am going to have one of my lectures videorecorded so that the University can use and re-use it again then they'd better improve my compensation packet. As of now, I do not grant them the right to re-distribute things indiscriminately. It is sort of the re-negotiation of contracts for actors after VHS/DVD/BD came along... Each new medium for the producers to make extra $$ then the people who actually work in making the product should get extra $$ too.
We don't need teachers to waste time fucking around with that shit instead of coming up with lesson plans.
I teach at the university level, and would suffer sanctions or at least be spoken to if I just used:
- Blogs
- Websites
- Online tools
In class willy-nilly. I can't even create a discussion forum for us somewhere or email the students directly using their preferred email address (instead, I am stuck using school addresses that many rarely check). Instead, I am usually bound to a pre-determined, certified list of internal tools of which the most infernal is Blackboard, which seems to be the "technology tool" of choice at every campus at which I've taught. Too bad because its user interface is so absolutely poor that students who spend their days entirely online still can't figure it out; its compatibility is so bad that trying to use it in a course is a sure way to spend at least half of a class if not an entire class talking about required browsers and how to install them; and its stability is so bad that you'd better not rely on it for evaluated exercises, because half the students will say "it was down, I couldn't do the assignment" and a quick exchange with IT will reveal this to have been the case.
From the other technology tools that seem to make their way onto campuses, the electronic blackboard/whiteboard tools are cute but are so expensive that they tend to be locked away / disabled and require that you file in advance for access on the days that you're "planning" to use them, necessitating a visit from an IT tech before and after class. And predictably, half the time when they get there with the key and switch you on, you find out that the system is damaged in some way and doesn't actually operate, but nobody has reported it or performed maintenance / swap-outs in that room for ages and despite your need and reporting, their ETA for repair, once scheduled is sometime after the semester is over.
The one university I taught at as an adjunct that issued new ThinkPads to its students and had campus WiFi also locked them down completely with just IE and Office and not even Flash, meaning that many online applications and tools of various kinds couldn't be used.
Basically, I could just bring MY laptop and students could just bring THEIR laptop and we could use the WiFi and OUR OWN accounts and whatever software we wished, my classrooms would be FAR more technologically enabled. With all of the requirements, it becomes far more practical and easy to simply do a better job doing what good instructors have always done: stand at the front of the classroom, talk a lot and ask a lot of Socratic questions, and write on the blackboard with chalk or on the whiteboard with a marker. That, at least, tends to be accessible everywhere and very fail-safe.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
We should adopt technological approaches that actually improve the quality of the educational process.
Technology for the sake of tech doesn't necessarily meet that goal. The cognition issues tied to improper use of presentation technologies like Powerpoint (or Apple Keynote or OpenOffice or etc...) raise serious questions about its use in the educational process.
Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of congress. But then I repeat myself. -- Mark Twain
On the other hand, it takes a while to become a good teacher. Some great professors have been teaching on chalkboards for decades, they've become adapted to it and it works. Don't fix what isn't broken or you'll go from a professor who is very effective at to an older person bumbling around on a computer.
When I was an undergrad in the early '80s books were an expensive add-on cost to education that sometimes seemed completely worthless. My daughter is now a college sophomore, and I see that nothing has changed. If anything books are even more expensive than ever.
Course material should be public domain and electronic.
sigs are for losers (except to point out that sigs are for losers)
Let professors teach the way they see fit, provided their teaching is effective.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
Well, as someone who has done, and published, some empirical research on the use of technology in teaching, the one thing we know for sure is that any 'one size fits all' approach will not work well. There are some classes where using technology can be useful. For instance, in a class which involves analyzing passages of text, being able to project the text can be handy. However, in such a case, this is only useful if students can download the text ahead of time so that they can annotate it in class. However, there are other classes, say in mathematics, where technical aids are merely a distraction.
There is an unfortunate tendency in higher education for technology enthusiasts to make a great deal of noise, which can garner attention from the admin types, while the same individuals have a poor grasp of the underlying technology. This situation often leads to expensive train wrecks. Another problem is caused by the folks who are weak faculty members who use technology to cover their shortcomings. Interestingly, blogs are a great favorite with this type.
Really, the issue here is that technology is not an automatic panacea. Moreover, integrating technology into teaching has to be done carefully and in a controlled manner. Different technologies need to be deployed experimentally and incrementally, with a great deal of attention paid to effectiveness. Unfortunately, this happens all too seldom, as the evangelists all too often get the ears of the administrators. However, they are the ones which end up with failed projects, while I am the one with successful projects and publications!
We geeks routinely overestimate the importance of technology.
The purpose of teaching is to get knowledge into people. There are various ways to do it, but the major advantages in the field have not been technologically, but psychologically and pedagogic.
So, how about focussing on what works, instead of what sounds cool?
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
My CS proffesor used Dyknow last semester to teach a discrete class. In class he would use a tablet to write his notes which were then displayed trough a projector. The notes and sound were recorded in real time, then posted online so that students could download then listen and watch the lecture again. This type of recording technology was great. One thing I hate as a student is an over reliance on Blackboard. This application works okay for administrative tasks but really sucks as a teaching tool. Online discussion, quizes, and teaching material on this platform has always been slow, unreliable, and had little learning value for me.
If your tech tool is PowerPoint then you are on the road to fail.
Can you please explain why you think that?
Yes because the pigolopolists who run the textbook companies can gouge students for hundreds of dollars per student each semester. What's that you say, books are on their way out? Yes they are, welcome to SUBSCRIPTIONS. Do you want to do your homework? Pay up for a new book and code because you can't in fact do your homework without buying a book and a pincode. That's how they're going to make their monopoly profits: testing and subscriptions. If you're in math or science, better bend over and take it in the ass from companies like McGraw-Hill, Pearson, and Wiley. You pays your money for an overpriced college AND overpriced books and technology. And hey, they all use FLASH extensively to power their systems so you're REALLY shit out of luck if you want to access your content from an iPhone/iPad. Time to bend over and PAY AGAIN!
The question to ask is "does the level of tech used by a teacher improve student learning?" I would respond "not necessarily." I use a mix of varieties when I teach based on topic, available demos, etc. Not all student learn by blogging or interactive games. tech is not a silver bullet, but often is used in place of the teacher in order to supplement where the teacher's abilities are lacking - which often translates to a section of teachers who simply lack teaching ability. At the college level, most teachers are SMEs first and teachers second. Use of tech can help them reach students, but I am a firm believer that teachers should learn to teach regardless of their degree. So I wouldn't diss a teacher for using white-board + lecture any more than the teacher who leans heavily on tech unless they have high failure rates, high student dissatisfaction or their "style" makes them seem incompetent.Then I would question whether they are using a varied enough approach to reach their students. Some teachers may need to back off the tech and others may need to add tech. But teachers need to be trained to teach. A teacher who is uncomfortable with a method looks bad.
I've spent the last 8 years training to become a professor. (Yeah, undergrad doesn't count.)
The "teaching" part of that training consisted of one class on teaching, and nine months of part-time teaching experience, which mainly consisted of grading. That was 7 years ago.
The "research" part of that training consisted of ~12 classes, and 7 years of full time research work. My faculty applications will be judged almost exclusively on my research experience and ideas. My professional advancement as a professor will also depend almost exclusively on my research.
There are exceptions to this, I'm generalizing.
Of course, if we really want to train people as well as we can, the apprenticeship model used in research labs works quite well (and fits well with the realities of the current research funding model). It's hands-on, small group, with personalized lectures and lots of opportunity for interaction and collaboration.
The main shortcoming consists in the idea of still giving lecture the old way (at a given time 1 professor, 80 students). Using tech to spice the lecture up a little is a waste of time. To be fair thats from somebody who believes lectures are a waste of time. I learned better in the library, from a book. The idea of having a *good* interactive book where you can run simulations of an experiment and change the real experimental parameters for sure is intriguing. The class of exercises you could do with that is a completely different one from the exercises you can do now. But i acknowledge that some of my fellow students enjoyed going to lectures for reasons not obvious to me, as a kind of social event. So no, i think the professor should not be forced to use "clickers" or something. Every course should have a forum in the web, where students can discuss, the exercise supervisors can help, and one time per week the professor should meet informally with small groups of those interested to explain the biggest questions which arose. So no, io dont think lectures need to change. Lectures need to stop.
As long as you consider technology to make a better video player of a better quiz, you are not using the full potential.
... it's a fail. I've spent enough time watching speakers and AV people fiddle with cameras, microphones and slides - sometimes to the point of wondering why I bothered to show up at all - to be left with the feeling that most on-site recording technology isn't up to the job of recording real people teaching. If the Universities are going to get heavily into this, then they should plug some of the money they save by not heating halls into getting quality recording equipment that doesn't need to be nursed along.
And because it's what students want and students are paying for the service. We should stop letting schools and teachers get away with bad customer service. It's just bullshit that they shouldn't have to provide good service to their students because students should respect their elders/educators.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
One of my best college professors stood at the front of a hall full of students and lectured for an hour twice a week. Occasionally, he would write something down on the board behind him, usually just the correct spelling of a name he was referencing. What made him good was his "storytelling" - his ability to share with us decades of study in a meaningful and memorable way. No amount of technology would have helped this guy do his job any better, and his inability to keep up with technology (he was the stereotypical fuddy-duddy old professor) would have definitely hindered him had he tried.
All too often now I have a lecturer who simply sits behind a desk and reads out powerpoint slides. It isn't engaging and he promptly loses all attention.
I have a single Thermodynamics and Turbine design lecturer who seems to have a theory that if he ever puts notes into electronic form or allows his lectures to be photographed or recorded in any form, he will immediately have everything stolen. Not that this isnt likely the case (other lecturers are lazy), but this guy is willing to take a student to court if he finds them with a camera in the lecture theatre.
That said, his lectures are FANTASTIC. He teaches a room of 450 students on Thermodynamics using only the chalkboards and talking. Having students (even the lazy ones) forced into staying focused and working through his lectures, as well as good worked examples etc is a much more effective method of teaching and puts all other lazy lecturers to shame.
We need more classes like this!
We need more classes like this!
I do tech support and staff training in K-8 schools. I've covered the whole range from complete technology immersion (1:1 student/laptop ratio) to classes that don't use computers at all.
In my time doing this job I've seen plenty of people take the attitude that there are two kinds of teachers -- those who use technology and those who suck. But even as a techie myself, I feel this is a very shortsighted opinion.
You could make the argument that, all else being equal, an environment rich in technology is more conducive to learning. But I've also seen plenty excellent of teachers who don't use computers for anything but state mandated testing, which is all online now.
As the cliche says, there's more than one way to skin a cat. Just because it makes some people more effective teachers doesn't mean it's the only way.
This will only force everyone use PPT, so everyone is stupider.
It is inherently better. If you're spending half the lecture writing something on the board that could very well be flashed up there in an instant using PowerPoint or similar, you're wasting the students time.
Having taught a junior level engineering course (Applied Thermodynamics) for a couple of semesters while finishing up grad school, I'd tend towards the opposite conclusion on this particular point. If I just flashed stuff up there for an instant using PowerPoint, it would be very easy to go way too fast and skim over details that are intuitive to me since I know the material well, but are a mystery to the students who haven't seen it before. I found that the "old school" approach of using the chalk board (or white board, etc.) helped me keep the pace to something reasonable for the students to be able to have time to both take notes and also pay attention to what I was saying, and allowed for more interaction and free-form explanations. I did use PowerPoint to show some charts, pictures, etc. but found that for the material I was teaching, the chalk board was better for the bulk of the equations/derivations/example problems I was putting up there.
There are definitely some courses where the material lends itself more to being presented via PowerPoint or the like. There are some courses where visual aids would just be silly most of the time (e.g. some of the best history professors I had never used any). There are some courses where writing on a board works best. I had a few programming courses where code examples were shown on the big screen, and that would certainly be silly to spend all one's time writing out by hand. Mandating a one-size-fits-all approach of "thou shalt use this technology because the University spent money on it," would be counterproductive to say the least. Leave it to the professors to decide which technologies help and which would only be distractions or hindrances.
PowerPoint leads to reducing complex issues to bulleted points and that is detrimental to the decision making and learning process.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/27/world/27powerpoint.html
http://www.afji.com/2009/07/4061641
Probably been said already but just to be clear: there is a certain kind of lecturer who relies on powerpoint etc. who would thrive in such an environment while students suffer with canned presentations which could have just as easily been read from a coffee shop or even in bed.
As a university teacher myself, my credo is that i do not teach, i help my students learn. One of the key components of learning, as opposed to acquiring facts, is the ability to push the borders of the known and seek out something new. So I always encourage my students to explore what is new even it is in something as traditional as -- say RDBMS. ... and yes I do try to use whatever technology I have access or can afford .. and this includes stuff like Wiki, Blogs, social networks, YouTube, Print-On-Demand. Some of these have proved to be successful and some have failed. We rejoice when things work out but we do not regret our failures.
In this context it is important that the teacher walk the talk and prove to the students that he or she is also pushing the borders
Unfortunately many of my colleagues see all this is a waste of time.
Insight into much, Influence over nothing !
This is a further extension of an issue with teachers in the lower schools. Professors or "teachers" are not required to teach anything at all. What teachers and professors do is offer both information and a way of life to students. The students are the ones charged with the task of learning. And students usually are free to use numerous tools and methods of learning. Both the students and hopefully their parents can and must find ways to make learning stick in the students' minds.
I found that I was required to have total recall on quite a few facts and figures while in school. I quickly learned to shut off the TV and the radio and repeat to myself as fast as I could a fact, sentence or paragraph over and over until it stuck. Sometimes I jumped all around the room repeating the item until I could spit it out precisely at any time of day or night. My method might work one heck of a lot better than high resolution, 64 million color displays that a student can fall asleep while watching.
Yes. Not because it's inherently better (it's not), but because it's what students can expect to be exposed to for the rest of their lives/careers. So they might as well become used to it.
I disagree. The first duty - possibly the only duty - of a teacher should be to teach their subject in the best way possible. Just because people believe it is much better/easier to use some tech media doesn't mean that it is. Take Powerpoint presentations, for example: most people think this is an effective way of communicating, but studies have shown that in fact, the speech and what goes on on the slides disturb each other, so the audience actually get less out of it. Add to that, of course, the effect of a bad set of slides and a speaker who can't present, and you have something in an altogether different league of horror.
And apart from that, teaching is not just about presenting a subject to a class, it is also about meeting the students where they are, mentally, as individuals - all these cool blogs and what have you are not adequate for that; it is too much of a one size fits all. Some students have brilliant ideas, but are afraid of looking stupid, so they need to be enticed out of hiding; others are not nearly as clever as they like to think and probably need to be slowed own a bit with a sledge hammer to their foreheads. "Cool tech" just isn't up to the challenge, and a teacher can all too easily waste lots of time trying to (badly) master all the coolness.
There are certain buzzwords tossed about by education people. "Engagement" is one of them. In every case, what the writer means is "Entertainment".
Students want to be entertained in class. Sure, this has always been true - but now, there is a group of people who believe it is necessary for students to learn.
Will students contribute and participate more if the class meeting / lecture / video presentation is entertaining? Of course they will. But what a university education is about seems to have been lost.
If you want to train a student to perform a task, build a trade school. It's faster and cheaper. But if you want the student to be thinking, creative, driven, AND educated you have to get the student to work FOR HIS/HER-SELF. That means the student needs to learn without entertainment. Which will only be accomplished by self-motivation.
University education is about LEARNING, not teaching. It's about the student becoming a scholar.
When I am learning something, I have little interest at all in whether or not my teacher has laid a good cable that morning, or shouted at the TV because of "X". So what benefit would there be from a blog - a semi-continuously updated description of the professor's life, activities and thoughts? ... then yes a blog is appropriate. For the 17th presentation of the isotope geochemistry course, where nothing new has been added in the last half-decade, I fail to see the relevance of a blog.
Now, if I were a researcher working with a professor, when every day at the coalface is likely to bring something which is actually NEW
Course websites, containing relevant paperwork (referenced papers, lecture summaries/ synopses, etc), assignments, apologies that Proff Bloggs will be taking next Monday's lecture, and an invite to buy the professor beer on Friday afternoon - that's relevant. Updating the site to reveal more parts of the course every few weeks may also be relevant (you don't want people rushing too far ahead, or doing all year's assignments in the first week). But a blog? Give me a break!
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
just rolled over in his grave.
In my experience, the more often I teach a particular lecture, the smoother and more effective it will be. Forcing someone to change a lecture because the students expect it is unreasonable. Granted, some changes are simple (PowerPoint instead of overhead slides, lecture video available for download, electronic copies of handouts, etc.), but really, a halfway decent lecturer will understand where improvements can be made, and no amount of technology will make a bad teacher much better.
Besides, anyone who thinks college courses are intended to prepare you for the real world either never went to college or never had a real job.
As a former religious fanatic, I can second the motion that my people group would not benefit from technology in the classroom, as we value fanaticism over learning. Were we exposed to blogs, we would likely become more broad-minded. "Oh, a blog! I now find myself open to new ideas! Without technology, I would never have experienced such diverse interaction! Who knew that computers could be used for things other than masturbating in secret!", said I, upon my first use of a blog in classroom related activities.
Like you, I also studied basic matrix operations like calculating quazar defribulations in multiplex eingenvagectors in Brazil. Much better than reading books, taking field trips, and speaking to knowledgeable folks, I found search engines to be supreme vehicles for paradigm shifts in former areas of ignorance.
Nick
is above the level of skill and time the average educator has. I have an MAEd in Computer Education (how to use computers to improve education, not how to use computers) AND I design computer-based training for a living. Even a simplistic interactive quiz is too complicated and more importantly, too time consuming for the average educator.
It's also very expensive. For moderate levels of interactivity, a good average time for development is about 450 hours for one hour of lesson plan (instructor led) training. Multiply that by a typical rate of about $100/hour for corporate training development, and it gets too expensive, too quickly to outsource.
A better alternative would be to abandon the pipe dream of highly interactive, "exciting" training in favor of things that most people already know how to do (blogging, for example).
Either you are a talented public speaker and in the 1% of the population who can use PowerPoint effectively, or you are being intentionally obtuse. I'm pretty sure most people know a bad PowerPoint presentation when they see one (hint: nearly all of them). I can imagine they would only be worse with an under-motivated tenured prof. of Econ-101 who has little incentive to make better PowerPoint presentations.
About ten years ago I read a blog entry by, I believe, Steve Oualline. The writer (whether or not it was Mr. Oualline) was in a graduate program that involved taking classes at the Harvard business school and at MIT in the EECS department. He made the observation that the Harvard professors predominately used Powerpoint in class. Very high tech. They often spent up to ten minutes fiddling with their laptop, installed equipment and connections to make it work, losing up to one fifth of their lecture time. At MIT, he noticed, the Computer Science professors predominately used chalk, or erasable markers. Not at all high tech, especially considering that many of those professors had helped develop the systems, or at least the foundations on which those classroom systems (mostly) ran. His question was: what do these MIT CS professors know that the Harvard B-school professors don't know about the technology that keeps them using the old technology?
There are plenty of subjects where the use of technology is essential in the workplace. But it's effective communication of knowledge that makes a good instructor and a good lesson. Even today, computers don't know diddlysquat. They contain and process data. So it's whether or not professors can effectively communicate knowledge so that the students can apply it regardless of the technology (chalkboard or video projector) they use to teach it.
Tech can certainly help in the classroom, but the great thing about pens and white boards is that nobody can write faster than students an read. Plenty of academics can deliver really effective lecturers with almost no technology to assist. It's outside the classroom when the tech helps. A well mediated online discussion helps consolidate learning, good online material fills in the gaps (do you really want to cover everything that will be examined in lectures?) A quiz can help students assess how strong their understanding is. Twitter can help stimulate students thinking between lectures. Best of all, tech provided a host of ways students can talk to their lecturers without trudging across campus and hoping they strike it lucky!