Worker\’s Playtime!

A colleague of mine recently sent me an article from the Chronicle dated 1/2007 that addresses education and web 2.0 (What Web 2.0 Can Teach Us About Learning). I think it’s right on target and reminds me of 1999/2000 when the challenge that I had was finding the hook to lure faculty to use technology to enhance the teaching and learning experience. The bait was the CMS (course management system). Back then the reticence had more to do with answering the question from faculty: “how does it help me?” One of my classmates (tenured professor at PLU) insisted that faculty had a valid question and the only way to show them the benefits was to phase technology into what they already do . Start by showing them how technology could alleviate administrative tasks. Demonstrate how an online gradebook can benefit faculty and students, demonstrate how class material can be posted for the entire class to see thus saving reams of toner (etc.), and demonstrate how assignments can be collected and graded digitally. Get faculty on board with this she insisted, and they will be more inclined to explore the more powerful possibilities of using technology to impact student learning. Once this phase has been realized then educators will be well positioned to move towards the next step: infusing technology into the curriculum so that it has a meaningful impact on learning.

So our next phase shouldn’t only focus on faculty development but rather it should include an examination of how students use technology or, more important, how they want to use technology <see Chronicle article above>. The currents of technology run rampant and the digital natives know the water better than we do. Doesn’t it make sense to include students in the discussion and let them navigate?

JENNY

I recently returned from an electronic portfolio conference at Stanford University <more on that later> where we explored how eportfolios could support integrative learning, learning outcomes, and make the learning process more visible. The whole discussion of eportfolios is very exciting for a number of reasons. In some respects educational technology has not gained traction in higher education. Sure there has been adoption of tools that have made communication easier and administrative tasks more efficient. But the adoption of technology to really transform learning (in the true constructivist sense) lags. Why is that? Effort has been made towards developing faculty acuity with technology but the potential is still not even close to what it could be. In part it has to do with the unbalanced effort being put towards faculty development and not enough attention being paid to student use of technology. If the efforts were shifted to better support creative use of technology by students eportfolios and other academic technology initiatives would flourish. Momentum would build because students would be driving the effort for academic use of technology. This seems to be happening with regular frequency in the k-12 environment - why not in higher ed? The adoption of student centered eportfolios could be a good beginning.

JENNY