Author: Walter

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What Kind of University?

What Kind of University?

The challenge for universities

Many universities are making substantial investments in new technologies for teaching purposes. The increasing ease of use and improved presentational and interactive features of technologies such as the World Wide Web are leading many academics to use technology for teaching for the first time in a significant manner.

However, although there has been widespread adoption of new technologies for teaching in the last few years, they have yet to bring about major changes in the way teaching is organized and delivered. Without such changes, though, technology-based teaching will remain a marginalized activity, while at the same time leading to increased unit costs.

For technological change to be effective, it usually needs to be accompanied by major structural and organizational changes for its full potential to be realised. This paper attempts to indicate some of the strategies that universities may need to adopt in order to use technology effectively for teaching and learning.

This is a classic paper by Tony Bates 1997 is important and certainly appeals on first glance. He goes on to outline 12 steps in which the University will be reformed, transformed – I’ll list them here.

Twelve organizational strategies for change 10

1. A vision for teaching and learning 11

2. Funding re-allocation 12

3. Strategies for inclusion 13

4. Technology infrastructure 15

5. People infrastructure 15

6. Student computer access 16

7. New teaching models 18

8. Faculty agreements and training 20

9. Project management 21

10. New organizational structures 23

11. Collaboration and consortia 26

12. Research and evaluation 27

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Online Learning

To be effective, online courses must do two things, says Fernando Senior, an instructional designer recently hired by the University of Minnesota’s distance-education department. They must focus on learners, and they must capitalize on the medium. In other words, students should demonstrate learning in different ways than they might in a classroom, because they have at hand the tools to do so.

… Constructing such rich learning environments wouldn’t be possible without technology, say its enthusiasts, but to make courses this sophisticated, schools are tapping project-management teams. And these bring their own set of pros and cons to education.

On the plus side, instructors say that working with teams makes them better teachers, and that different perspectives enhance their courses. They say they also see a difference in what students take away from their work: “Students take much more responsibility for their own learning and use the online environment to supplement and enhance their learning experiences,” says Trisha Swan

Wisdom here. Good article.

The site it comes from is worth noting too: ComputerUser
Many articles on file and I can flick them straight into the Palm! Beautifully done.

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