Teaching with Technology: Facilitating the Process

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Case Study

Teaching with Technology: Facilitating the Process

Part 1: Strategies for adopting instructional technology

8/29/2007

By Ric Keaster, Leroy Metze, and Angela Hillegass

The presence of technology in the nation's schools is an expectation mentioned in policy statements from local school boards to such influential national initiatives as No Child Left Behind (NCLB). The NCLB legislation emphasizes the importance of incorporating technology in all areas of P-12 education; it is not a matter of "if" P-12 schools teach the nation's students to use technology but "when," and the time is sooner than later. Likewise, instructors in colleges of education cannot teach prospective teachers to use technology unless the faculty, themselves, use technology in the college of education classrooms as a part of their instruction. There is something about "modeling" that goes a long way in education, regardless of the level of education under consideration.

Colleges and universities across the nation have realized that technology is an absolute when considering how courses on their campuses will be delivered--either face to face sessions, through distance learning sessions, or in mixed formats. Presidents and provosts, college deans, departmental chairs, and program directors have embraced the notion that using technology in their institutions' instruction is a "given"; at least it holds prominent positions in all of their strategic planning documents. New senior level positions (e.g., chief information officers, vice presidents for technology) have been created in relatively recent years to help oversee the development of the infrastructure for this instructional innovation. Likewise, faculty development centers have found a new realm of aid they can provide faculty to enhance their instructional efforts.

Teaching with technology involves two primary areas of new knowledge where faculty members need professional development: online instruction and face to face instruction.

The advent of distance learning in higher education has forced administrators and faculty to view the presentation of course content in entirely new ways and invest in technologies that will allow students to access instruction from sites other than the traditional campus classroom. The current text, however, deals with the latter of these two, the need to provide faculty not only with the technological tools for enhancing instruction, but also with the knowledge of how to best use these materials to maximize the time faculty spend with students in physical college and university classrooms. The College of Education and Behavioral Sciences (CEBS) at Western Kentucky University has been very successful in recent years in equipping faculty and classrooms with the latest technology available for instructional use as well as providing the necessary training to make sure that faculty can make the most of such investments.

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