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Issue Contents
Teaching and Learning: What does Technology Have to Do with It? Ray Schroeder
When most people think about teaching and learning, they conjure up images of classroom engagement between student and faculty member using a black or white board; reading books; taking notes on paper; and typing papers. Each of these images involves technologies: blackboards; whiteboards; books; pen and paper; typewriter or computer. Technology tools have always been a part of the teaching and learning process. From pre-history to today, they are integral to the way in which humans store information and help to build knowledge. From drawings on cave walls to cuneiform tablets, the leaps in technology afforded significant benefits. Cavemen (and women) drew and scratched on cave walls, in part to illustrate concepts and techniques. Those cave walls were not "mobile" technologies. As civilization evolved, "mobile-learning" technologies came about. I can only suppose that the clay cuneiform tablets dating back six millennia were used by Sumerians to teach and learn. But, those tablets certainly must have been awkward, heavy, and required time for the clay to dry (or be fired for a more permanent record). Over time, the clay cuneiform tablets were replaced by the equivalent of the iPod - the new technology of papyrus, which was much lighter and on which the ink dried instantly. Later, there were erasable wax tablets followed by a continuous stream of ever-evolving, ever-improving technologies. Imagine the burden on the teachers of shifting from clay to papyrus; from papyrus to wax. A busy teacher would hardly have the time to learn how to best use the new technology and what advantages it afforded to students. Becoming facile with the stylus was hard enough, but then having to learn to use a pen was just over the top! And, building the infrastructure to supply the ink and replacement pens, let alone sheaves of papyrus must have seemed insurmountable! From the very beginnings of civilization, technology has had a central communication role in facilitating information transfer and knowledge-building. Certainly, this is no more true than today. We are confronted with an accelerating array of new technologies. Many of these provide significant enhancements to information exchange, retention of data, and the building of knowledge. And, the same is true with the new technologies of today. The challenge remains in finding ways to most efficiently teach technology to the teachers so that they can best use these new technologies to do their work better. Just as we teach our students in groups - thereby drawing upon the collective wisdom and the range of questions of the diverse group of learners - there are advantages to teach the teachers in groups. The diversity of the group can create a fertile ground to grow broader and deeper understandings of how the technologies might best be used. That is the principle underlying our approach to Sloan-C workshops. Learning together, we will build greater knowledge and support networks as we move beyond the cuneiform to Web 2.0. (Join Sloan-C in our online workshop- Technology Bootcamp - February 6 to March 7. Burks Oakley II and Ray Schroeder of the University of Illinois and John Bourne of Sloan-C will host.)
Evolving Student Services Naj Shaik, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Education is a service, and students are the prime focus of the institution. Education services constitute core and supporting services. Teaching and learning that occur in the class are examples of core services because they are critical to a successful learning experience. A number of supporting services include real-time information about courses, student advising, online registration, orientation, student accounts, help-desk, complaint handling, and feedback in a friendly, trustworthy and timely manner. Students regularly come into contact with staff associated with these services during their stay at the institution. These services create added value for student and determine the quality of their learning experience. According to the recent Sloan survey of online education, Online Nation: Five Years of Growth in Online Learning, there has been a substantial growth in online learning and that the demand is expected to continue. In the past, educational institutions have addressed the issue of student support services by establishing and maintaining facilities and personnel integrated into the campus environment. The focus has been mostly campus-based students. With the growing enrollment of distance learning student community on the campuses there has been a gradual evolution of student services to meet the needs of online distance learners. Many academic institutions started with extending the campus-based student services to online distance learners by implementing Student Relationship Management (SRM) to provide services to improve student relationships. Even though enrollments in online and distance learning programs have been growing at a relatively faster rate than campus programs, and they are expected to continue growing, few academic institutions offer services to non-traditional students that are on par with campus-based student services. Institutions market themselves as student focused, but in reality most SRMs are designed to focus on products rather than on students. Institutions need to better engage students with collaborative learning experiences, empowering students and making them feel they are an integral component of the value-creation process. The merging of Web 2.0 technologies with SOA (service-oriented architecture) provides opportunities to develop faster, cheaper and more flexible student centered services to meet the needs of all students. One of the strategies available to the institution is to leverage the social dimension of Web 2.0, harnessing the collective power of students to custom design services using technologies such as blogs to syndicate their posts, wikis as collaboration tools, and mashups to assemble Web components and data. (Join Sloan-C in our online workshop- Support Services and Emerging Technologies - January 9 to 18th. Naj Shaik, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Karen Vignare, Michigan State University will host.)
Learn From the Experts - The Sloan-C 2008 Workshop Series The 2008 schedule has been posted on the main workshop page. Support Services and Emerging Technologies - January 9 - 18 A student's online academic journey can be complex, but should it? When designed properly, emerging technologies can assist both institutions and students. What does an institution need to support online learning endeavors? Lets explore creative applications of technology for: -Staff and faculty development and training -Library considerations -Academic and student support services -Open source utilization and partnerships -Peer learning, and -Self-learning paradigms. Click here for details and registration. Assessment Advances Using Emerging Technologies - January 16 - 25 Whats my grade? How am I doing? Performance evaluation throughout the learning path of a student in an online environment is evolving. How are new technologies and applications helping us understand assessment? Lets examine emerging technologies that assist with assessment that will enable us to better serve our anytime, anywhere lifestyles. Concepts included will be: student learning and programmatic effectiveness. Click here for details and registration. Getting Started: Online Course Development Basics - January 16 - February 8 A student's online academic journey can be complex, but should it? When designed properly, emerging technologies can assist both institutions and students. What does an institution need to support online learning endeavors? Lets explore creative applications of technology for: -Staff and faculty development and training -Library considerations -Academic and student support services -Open source utilization and partnerships -Peer learning, and -Self-learning paradigms. Click here for details and registration. Pedagogy And New Learning Environments - January 30 - February 8 Teaching and learning has vastly changed due to emerging technologies. Personalization, collaborative learning, and social software have produced and introduced perhaps a new paradigm. Can instructional designers keep up? How? We'll explore what has been done to improve pedagogy using these new tools. Other considerations include: open educational resources, collaborative efforts, design paradigms, and affordable, sustainable delivery models. Click here for details and registration. |
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The Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C), sponsored by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, is composed of institutions and organizations dedicated to continually improving the quality, scale, and breadth of their online programs, according to their own distinctive missions, so that education becomes a part of everyday life, accessible and affordable for anyone, anywhere, at any time, in a wide variety of disciplines. The Sloan-C View is published by Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C™). Responsibility for the contents rests with the authors and not with Sloan-C™. Copyright ©2007 by Sloan-C™. If you have a question or comment, would like to submit an article for publication, or would like to suggest an event to be listed on the Sloan-C View Calendar, please email sloan-cview@sloan-c.org. Materials in the Sloan-C View, unless otherwise noted, may be distributed freely for educational purposes. However, if any materials are redistributed they must retain the copyright notice and use the proper citation. Kindly send an email to sloan-cview@sloan-c.org indicating how you are using the material for distribution. Your privacy is important to us, you can view our privacy policy at www.sloan-c.org/aboutus/privacy.asp This issue is being sent to: %%emailaddr%% If you do not wish to receive future issues, please send a blank email to %%email.unsub%% and your email address will be removed from our list. The Sloan Consortium, Olin Way, Needham, MA 02492-1200 | |||||||