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- Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 22:37:04 EDT
- Sender: "EDTECH - Educational Technology" <EDTECH@OHSTVMA.BITNET>
- From: Carol Taylor <ctaylor@diana.cair.du.edu>
- Subject: Convincing Faculty to Change
- Lines: 80
-
- I too support faculty in the use of educational technology. I am
- writing in response to recent messages discussing how best to entice
- faculty to the use of technology in the curriculum.
-
- I would agree that part of the problem is the lack of convincingly
- excellent tools for faculty to use and another part of the problem is
- a reluctance to change and a resistance to the new. However, I think
- there are another couple of other issues at play here as well:
-
- Equipment:
-
- At our school even those faculty members who are interested and would
- like to get going with educational technology are hampered by lack of
- equipment. Facilities are very limited and the limited facilities we
- have are rapidly aging (80286 and older Macs) to the point where they
- can't take advantage of many of the new and excellent technologies now
- available.
-
- I have shown multimedia to many members of our faculty and have met
- with an enthusiastic reception for the most part. However, I then
- need to tell them that the next step is to try and free up funds to
- purchase the necessary equipment. Needless to say, this has a
- dampening effect.
-
- Actually, I feel the problem of equipment is a fairly easy one to
- solve. It only requires fiscal resources, not changes in attitudes.
- A more serious problem lies in how faculty are rewarded at
- universities.
-
- Faculty Reward Systems
-
- Very few schools place the major emphasis of their reward structure
- (tenure, promotion, recognition among peers, etc.) on teaching.
- Faculty are rewarded primarily for research. Although I know this is
- not true at EVERY school, it certainly seems to be the norm at most.
- I have come to this conclusion from talking with faculty here and at
- other schools and from reading.
-
- Certainly we all know that re-writing a curriculum, especially using
- new tools and technology, is not a trivial undertaking. If this is
- what is required to adapt to new technology and there is little or no
- reward for time spent on curriculum development, how can we reasonably
- expect faculty, especially younger faculty, to endanger their careers
- by pursuing this course?
-
- An interesting sidelight to this here at DU is that faculty will
- routinely agree with this while administrators (deans, dept. heads,
- etc.) routinely disagree. That is to say, administrators think that
- teaching is emphasized in the reward structure, faculty do not think
- so.
-
- Support Issues
-
- Even if curriculum development and teaching is rewarded and equipment
- is plentiful, I think many administrators do not want to address the
- issue of human resources to provide support. I do not believe that
- faculty should have to struggle with every new technology that comes
- along in order to determine whether or not it will benefit them.
- Historians after all, probably want to be historians more than they
- want to be computer people.
-
- Certainly it is not too much to expect faculty to gain some level of
- basic knowledge and literacy with computers. However, the quantity
- and speed with which new technologies reach the marketplace raise the
- very real question of what academics should spend their time doing. I
- think a computer support staff that actively engages in research,
- development and support of educational technologies is a must for
- technology to be implemented successfully.
-
- I would find any continuing discussion of topics relating to the
- practical implementation of educational technology very interesting --
- including and criticism or commentary on the issues I have raised.
-
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- Carol Taylor Internet: ctaylor@du.edu
- University of Denver BITNET : ctaylor@ducair
- Faculty Computing Lab Phone : 303/871-2110
- 2020 S. Race - BA 367
- Denver, Colorado 80208 USA
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