Wednesday, January 10, 2007

information technology

"The best information technology closely parallels the pedagogical goals of teh learning paradigm: 1) fostering active learning, 2) constructing knowledge and 3) assessment. (Buckley, 2002:30)

Technology can serve as a "lever" in the transformation of higher education as it responds to teh needs for active learning, cooperative learning, multiple intelligences, diverse learning sytels, interdisciplinary instruction, authentic learning and assessment, critical thinking and problem solving, brain-compatible elarning, and the multicultural society.

"The only value of technology of instruciton is if it enhances learning in ways that are not otherwise available (Gandolfo 1998:30)."

The impact of technology on higher educaiton could identified as "requiring greater flexibility, the integration of research, teaching, and service in determinging faculty advancement, and a focus on outcomes and productivity to define success (Olcott 2000: 264)."


What could IT help?
  • individualized training at your desks on: exploring the library's research resources, Microsoft offices, mail and tele-conferencing, browsing WWW, Web-based searching, Macintosh and Windows environments, backing up and managing files, updating virus-potenction software
  • Computing First Aid consultants for tutoring general computer literacy topics.
  • Computeing questions conference and chat
  • outside-of-the-lecture-time computer class for beginer
  • One-on-one new employee orientation about campus resources
  • Staff workshops



Buckley, Donald P. 2002. "States of Progress: Education Leaders Talk Technology." Converge 3, no 4 (April): 54-58.

Gandolfo, Anita. 1998. Brave New World? The Challenges of Technology to Time-honored Pedagogies and traditional Structures. In Impact of Technology on Faculty Development, Life and Work, edited by Kay Herr Gillespie. New Directions in Teaching and Learning, no. 76. San Francisco:Jossey-Bass.

Olcott, Donald and Kathy Schmidt. 2000. Redefining Faculty Policies and Practices for the Digital Age. In Higher Education in an Era of Digital Competition, edited by Donal E. Hanna. Madison, Wis.:Atwood Press.

3 comments:

wisdom said...

How to distinguish differecnes between information technology and instructional technology?

wave said...

Here's my thought: people who talk about instructional technology are from the teaching or educational area, which they focus on the instructional function. However, information technology has broader concept that we usually refer to, which might perfer to computer science area. Honestly, I didn't see much discussion about the difference between these two in any book.

Anonymous said...

Yep, me either.
Just curious why you talked about information technology instead of instructional technology which is more related to our field.