As Northwestern students use technology to blog, tweet and Facebook about-and during-classes, the University is working to keep up.
This year’s Undergraduate Budget Priorities Committee survey asked students how receptive they would be to watching videotaped lectures online using more electronic textbooks and course packets.
As students weigh in on these technological improvements, the Academic and Research Technologies department of NU Information Technology is working to meet faculty members’ technology needs, said Bob Taylor, the department director.
‘NU faculty members are some of the best in their profession,’ Taylor said. ‘They are very open-minded about new ways to empower their teaching and research.’
Taylor said 2,000 NU course Web sites each quarter are hosted on Blackboard, and this fall NU brought all 100 registrar-controlled classrooms up to smart-technology standards.
NU faculty are using these smart-classroom features and Student Response System clickers in their lectures. Some professors are even blogging to stay in touch with their students outside the classroom.
Professor Richard Lepine, who teaches Swahili language courses as well as courses in film and literature said he has incorporated technology into his classes by using the Multimedia Learning Center lab in Kresge Hall, posting digital materials on Blackboard and using SRS clickers in his classes. Lepine added he also teaches his students how to use technology in ways that are relevant to their studies.’
‘Students in my second-year Swahili class always have a digital media presentation,’ Lepine said. ‘Whether they have a use for Swahili beyond second-year Swahili class, they will at least know how to do a multimedia PowerPoint.’
Lepine also said while the choice to adopt technology in the classroom is mostly left up to individual instructors, the University is enthusiastic about faculty using new technology.
‘The University is putting a lot of resources behind supporting, teaching, using media and training faculty who want to start incorporating technology in their classrooms,’ he said.
Students have traditionally played a role in the widespread adoption of new technology on campus, Taylor said. Blackboard, for example, was popularized by students when it was introduced on campus about 10 years ago, he said.
‘In many ways students are responsible for what is today a high adoption rate of Blackboard,’ Taylor said. ‘They encouraged, pestered or motivated more and more faculty to begin using Blackboard.’
Students now are more concerned with having better access to existing technologies on campus, Weinberg junior Anil Wadhwani said.
‘Everyone wants to be able to get on the Web wherever they are, and NU has made a commitment (to improve Wi-fi access on campus) every year,’ said Wadhwani, who has served as the Weinberg representative on the ASG/IT Advisory Committee for three years.
Political science Prof. Jerry Goldman, a self-described early adopter of technology, heads the Oyez project, a multimedia database of the U.S. Supreme Court. Goldman said the project’s Web site, which attracts approximately 25,000 hits each day, complements his ability to act as an instructor.
‘In a sense I am doing a lot of instruction, but not necessarily in the classroom,’ Goldman said. ‘(The Oyez project) is providing access to information in a novel and engaging way.’
Peer institutions have already begun to implement Web-based styles of instruction. Harvard University offers online courses for graduate and undergraduate credit through its Extension School, and the Duke University School of Continuing Studies also offers online courses.
Goldman said he expects the future of large-scale university instruction to evolve into ‘well-crafted Internet-based instruction,’ but the University has yet to ‘get off the ground’ in adopting this type of curricular reform. Teaching large introductory courses online would allow students to start experiencing the benefit of small, seminar-based classes from the time that they arrive at NU, he said.
‘What they end up with and tend to expect is ‘edu-tainment,’ where in a large class, I am a magician or showman that guides (students) through some body of information,’ Goldman said, ‘I think that approach has seen its day.’ [email protected]
