At the community college level, there are many common barriers to technology integration that I hear about. Most of them are simply excuses for why we shouldn't use the technology to help our students or how the technology makes things more difficult for students. I even hear the excuses of why we shouldn't post our class syllabi or class assignments on the Internet because it is the student's responsibility to keep tract of their paperwork and assignments. I think especially for some of our instructors who have been teaching at RCC for longer than I have been alive, there excuse is "I have always done it this way and it seems to work just fine so why should I change now?" I think it is because technology takes time to learn how to use and implement effectively and they simply don't want to take the time to learn how to use it.
One good example is our current accreditation that our school is going through. I am the chair for one of the Four Standards committees. Our accreditation chair thought it would be easier to communicate questions and responses between committee members and the steering committee if we set up an 'accreditation class' using WebCT. So that is exactly what they did. The steering committee would post questions for the committees to respond to every week just like an instructor would post an assignment for their students. Only 1/4 of the faculty responded to the questions stating excuses like "WebCT it too confusing to navigate through" or "I can't seem to log in." The steering committees' reasoning to using WebCT versus email was that they wanted a way for other Standards to view the responses from other committees and not simply their own committee. If we did this by email, that would mean 50-100 emails per day with the large number of faculty members at our campus. Nobody would have time to read all of these emails. Plus, they thought that we could save all of the dialogue electronically for the accreditation team's site visit in October. As the chair, I ended up having to cut and paste the questions for my committee members into an email and send directly to them in order for them to respond. Then I would have to cut and paste their response back into WebCT for others to view.
Another barrier to technology integration is our hybrid Math 52 classes that use My MathLab. In the hybrid class, we require the students to spend at least 2 hours in our math lab. The only problem is there are only 22 computers in the math lab and each hybrid class has 60-75 students. Therefore, the lab is always crowded right after a class lets out because the students find it convenient to go directly from class to the lab to work on their homework. The barrier appears to be that the students can work on their assignments from other computers on campus, (ie. computer labs, English/writing center, or the library) but they do not receive credit for their required 2 hours in the math lab because they are not actually in the math lab. This is a barrier that we can fix if we had more computers to accommodate all of the students. Another solution that we have posed is for students who bring laptops to school to use their personal laptop computers in our math lab while sitting at a desk. That way they are not taking up a computer and they are actually sitting in our math lab and able to fulfill their 2 hour requirement for the week.
Activity Log for the week of February 12 - February 18
Monday, February 12, 2007: download and listened to the podcast for session 6
Tuesday, February 13, 2007: received feedback from Dr. Newberry regarding project 1, continued to work on project 2.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007: responded to the blog posting for this week. Sent Dr. Newberry the hyperlink for project 2 for approval.
Thursday, February 15, 2007: respond to classmates blog postings.
Friday, February 16, 2007: work on project 3 proposal for more clickers. Edit videos for project 3
Saturday, February 17, 2007: respond to classmates blog postings.
Sunday, February 18, 2007: respond to classmates blog postings. Continue work on project 3.
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8 comments:
Hi James,
Can MyMathLab provide you with user report statistics? For example the times when a student logs in and out of the system, usually programs like these can generate reports that you can use to validate the number of hours the student used the software rather than physically being at the lab. Programs like WebCT and Blackboard provide statistics like these as well.
Lack of computers can be a major problem if the schools don't have the funds to buy more computers. If the system logged their hours then they would be able to do thier lab hours from any computer.
Hi Edgar,
You are doing an enormous amount of work with the cut, paste and postings. I am not familiar with WebCT; it is so enlightening for me to be in this class. I am learning that there are so many programs and applications that I am not familiar with. The Blog with comments is so easy to use why didm't you and others use it and even model at a workshop with teachers on how to develop one.
Old teachers do not want to be embarrassed, so if maybe when you are training them the training could be with only the teachers who have been there "before you were born" and given by one of the above that you have been able to motivate to the level of "Late Majority" (smile).
Old people (I am one) are scared of failure; and hate when you wonderful risk-takers want us to continue to take risk; the fear has been reduced in me by have one-on-one and small group/like age training. This is possible. Find an "old" teacher that you can motivate to train other "old" teachers.
Dorothy, finally graduated to an EARLY ADOPTOR/EARLY MAJORITY.
Hi Edgar again,
Please excuse my previous writing; it is terrible. I did not write, edit, rewrite, edit, write and publish. I went from write to publish, thank goodness you are a math teacher.
Hello James,
I am with you when it comes to people making comments such as: posting the syllabi makes studying harder for the students. It is my opinion that such statements are right down regressive. People who make that kind of statements have no business in the field of education.
By its very nature, education is progressive. Why on earth one would want to attend school, spend years studying and at the end graduate with the same ideas and phylosophies as when one first started attending school? That is insane!
I've had those same issues when I posted a website for my students and parents last fall. Teachers said I would "live to regret" giving all that information....so far I haven't regretted anything, but it is possible I haven't lived that long yet. I don't know whether it is a control issue, or they don't want questions about their practices.
Hi James,
It is difficult to run a successful computer based school when there is a lack of computers. It seems that everytime the budget comes up at schools, the money goes every where else but to the computers. However, the schools may purchase programs, but if there are a lack of computers or older computers, this create a problem.
It is interesting to see this issue from the Community College level. I taught at a Community College as an adjunct for a number of years so my interest may stem from that. The thing that I keep seeing here is that some people might point out something as a barrier that we don't agree is a barrier. But it is a barrier to them. Sometimes the perception of the barrier is in the eyes of the beholder. In some cases we can help them shift their perception, in other cases we cant. Good discussion!
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