This is a guest post by Jim Farmer. Jim is Chairman of instructional media + magic.
Interpreting the CDW-G 2010 survey summary report, Campus Technology magazine concluded: “Faculty members and campus IT staff aren’t exactly in agreement on the necessity of some technologies in education.” The can be interpreted to show CIOs consistently rank the individual technologies higher than faculty. Summary data from the CDW presentation is shown in Figure 1.
The real innovation in higher education it is not the technology itself. This may seem obvious now, but it wasn’t in the past. It’s a recent revelation that comes with changes in the roles of IT staff and faculty in innovation with technology for teaching and learning and in IT organizations and departments on campus.Trent Batson in Campus Technology, 2 June 2010
In July the “2010 21st Century Campus Report: Campus 2.0” was released at the Campus Technology conference held in Boston. Sponsor CDW-G is “a leading source of Information Technology (IT) solutions for education, government and business.” Their report was a series of summary slides from the survey data.
But the data may suggest a different interpretation.
Faculty rate digital content, wireless Internet access, and smart podiums sharply higher than other technologies. Lack of digital content may be a barrier to the use of the other technologies—an important observation if true. 57% of faculty also responded “accessing the campus’ network from an off-campus location is ‘extremely important.’” Smart podiums are used because faculty to supplement lectures with multimedia—digital content often provided by the textbook publisher or developed by the professor. The use of multimedia is now a mature and frequently used technology. There is evidence showing increased student performance.
Although the questions in the two survey instruments were identical, CIOs (Chief Information Officers) were identifying Important and Most Important technologies for the college or university as a whole. Faculty would respond only for their courses and disciplines; a much narrower view of the use of technology.
Faculty choose the teaching methodologies and education technologies that best accomplish their learning objectives. Their choices depend on the field of study, level, student background and schedule, as well as many other factors. Faculty choices are informed by their particular teaching situation, which is likely a far more limited prism than the “enterprise-level” view afforded to the CIO. Three recently cited examples illustrate this difference: Philosophy using communication technologies for collaboration, algebra using online drill and practice, and art history using lecture supplemented by slides, video, and audio.
An earlier CDW-G report provides insight into the current practices of faculty. Shown in Figure 2, the faculty responded on the use of the six technologies measured in the 2009 survey. In all cases, students use more technologies than faculty. Students use different technologies for different courses (areas of study); their responses would include any technology used in any course.
(The CDW-G Classroom Assessment Tool lists 20 technologies with an option to write in unlisted technologies. The only available data for analysis are summaries in the presentations).
The dominant student use of technology remains laptops and the availability and use of course management systems.
In addition to their use of differing technologies due to interaction with multiple faculty members,students also use social networking sites, open-source applications, MP3 players and Wikis (or similar) much more than faculty, likely reflecting personal use as well as use related to learning. The typical full-time student enrolled in five classes has a 34% likelihood of being in at least one course that requires the use of an MP3 player, and a 44% likelihood of being a course that requires the use of a Wiki. Similarly 53% of the students could be expected to take one or more courses using social networking sites assigned by only 14% of the faculty.
This suggests the difference between faculty and student technology use is dependent on the number of courses in which a student is enrolled. These data suggest students will use a technology more often than a faculty member will be assigning the technology in his course; hence the differences in use in the 2009 survey. This is illustrated in Figure 3. The three data points of student use reported are shown in black. The differences between faculty and student use of a technology begins to decline when faculty use is between 45% and 55%.
An earlier CDW-G survey report also compared use of technology between colleges and high schools. These results are shown in Figure 4. Only high school use of laptops exceed the equivalent use of a technology by college students.
CDW-G did not say the differences between CIOs and faculty were due to faculty being less willing to use a technology. A quantitative analysis of probabilities demonstrates these differences are inherent in students taking multiple courses where, in individual courses, only a few technologies may be the most effective instruction.
There has been little discussion that a lack of digital content may be limiting the growth of the use of certain technologies in higher education. Because of the extensive use of multimedia in the classroom—available from publishers and other sources as a supplement to lectures—and increasing use of lecture capture, which requires no further content development and not limited by lack of digital content, further suggests lack of content as a barrier. There is some data from a major research university consistent with this suggestion.
CIOs take an enterprise view of technology. Faculty employ technologies appropriate to their course. Students must master all of the technologies used in the courses they take. Analysis of any preference or use data should recognize these different realities And may be a factor reducing the rate of diffusion of technology in the college or university.
The CDW-G surveys have added to our understanding of the enterprise-faculty-student perspectives. Next year’s survey should help even more.
References
Batson, Trent. Innovation in Higher Education: It’s Not the Technology, Campus Technology. Chatsworth, California USA: 1105 Media Inc.
Caraher, Kelly and Meredith Braselman. (2009, 2 November). The 2009 21st-Century Campus Report: Defining the Vision . Vernon Hills, Illinois USA: CDW Government Inc.
Caraher, Kelly and Meredith Braselman. (2010a 28 June). The 2009 21st-Century Classroom Report Preparing Students for the Future or the Past?. Vernon Hills, Illinois USA: CDW Government Inc.
Caraher, Kelly and Meredith Braselman. (2010b 16 July). The 2010 21st-Century Campus Report: Campus 2.0 . Vernon Hills, Illinois USA: CDW Government Inc.
Cook, Bryan and Natalie Pullaro. (2010, 30 September). College Graduation Rates: Behind the Numbers. Washington DC USA: American Council on Education.
Emery, Gail. (2008, 13 October). The 21st-Century Campus: Are We There Yet? Challenges and Opportunities for Campus Technology. Vernon Hills, Illinois USA: CDW Government Inc.
Farmer, James. (2007, 12 February). Use of the Enterprise Blackboard Learning System, Spring 2006. Washington DC USA: Georgetown University or instructional media + magic inc.
Kurtz, Ryan. (2010, 24 June). CDW-G 21st Century Classroom Assessment Tool.[Survey text]. Vernon Hills, Illinois USA: CDW Government Inc.
Kurtz, Ryan and Meredith Braselman. (2010, 19 July).Ready or Not: Next-Gen Students’ Technology Expectations Surpass Students’ Today, Annual CDW-G Survey Finds [News Release]. Vernon Hills, Illinois USA: CDW Government Inc.
Nagel, David. (2010, 19 July). Faculty, IT Diverge on the Importance of Classroom Tech Campus Technology. Chatsworth, California USA: 1105 Media Inc.
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