How Technology Enhances Teaching and Learning

Students at the Owen School’s Strategy in the New Economy seminar enter a classroom that looks like any other, except that a projection system and video screen have been installed. Their professor announces that today they will be joined by a guest lecturer, a senior VP from a Fortune 500 corporation. What makes this guest lecture unique is that the students are sitting in a Nashville classroom but the guest lecturer is speaking from his home office in Estonia, via video technology.

This is an example of one of the creative ways faculty members at Vanderbilt are using technology to enhance their students’ learning. In the scene described above, Owen Professor David Owens, along with Professor Bart Victor, use video conferencing to bring an international guest speaker to their organization studies seminar. Across the University, faculties are using technology to help students master subjects from elementary and secondary school instruction to bioengineering to structural equation modeling. They are developing their own skills while making students comfortable with the technology that will help them is successful after leaving Vanderbilt. As they introduce more and more technology into the classroom, faculties are finding it raises the quality of class discussion and involves students much more deeply in their own education.

For this issue of the Teaching Forum, we spoke to four Vanderbilt faculty members, each of whom is using technology to enhance their students’ learning. Owen Management Professor David Owens uses videoconference links to bring in guest speakers and incorporates video and audio technology into most of his lectures.

Psychology Professor Andy Tomarken teaches methods and statistics courses in a computer lab, allowing him to integrate traditional lecture with demonstration projects using the methods he is teaching.

Peabody Professor Margaret Smithey guides her students in the preparation of multi-media classroom presentations including clips from the Internet, video, audio, and news archive footage. She has opened an e-conference for interns from her courses who want to stay in touch with their fellow students and professors, and she maintains a library of digitized video clips, taken from live and simulated classroom settings.

Department of Biomedical Engineering Chair Tom Harris directs a new NSF-funded center focused on developing technology-based bioengineering teaching materials and curriculum. He is collaborating with several partners, including Peabody Professor John Bransford. (Granberg, 2000).

The advent of the twenty-first century has thrust educational and school reform into the public arena. Businesses have created, have funded, and are managing for profit schools, some within the public school system. In order for schools to change, there will have to be a philosophical shift in the public’s perception of education. Technology provides a turning point for that shift, as its influence pervades so much of our daily lives. Any lasting changes will need to be preceded by a vision of what future learning environments will be like. The basic curriculum will change as schools focus on information and thinking skills and as the use of tools such as computers, information storage and retrieval systems, holograms, and virtual reality simulations becomes the norm rather than the exception. Teaching methods will change as these tools are incorporated. Instructional materials will reflect the tools being used in learning.

Students using computers are at a distinct advantage in that they use a tool that can extend their capabilities. Some schools are well equipped, with a high ratio of computers readily available, and others are not. Whites are about three times as likely to have computers at home as are African Americans and Hispanics; affluence students are nearly four times as likely as poor students. Students with access to home computer having a word processor and other productivity software constitution an elite group with a distinct advantage that over two-thirds of the student population does not enjoy. (Forcier).

Technology is many things. It is the pencil we use. It includes the eraser for the white board in our classrooms. Consider the many categories of technology-the internet, computing, telephone, video, photography-and many new ones emerging all the time. Computers are now so affordable that most people can have one at home. The emergence of 200-and 300-megahertz microprocessors now offers the promise of keeping up with ever expanding software needs. The nominal speed for cruising the internet is currently 56 kilobits per second. Wireless technology is continually affecting all technologies. Digital photography is now considered a viable option and is making an impact on the home camera market. Congress has mandated that television stations start going digital by 1999. In spite of all these technological advances, however, educators still must contend with lower end technology and, in many areas, a definitive lack of direction concerning technology in the twenty-first century classroom. (Cunningham).

One thing that is not very helpful in understanding online education is the way computers have been used in the past for learning applications. This history goes back about four decades and is usually referred to as Computer-Assisted Instruction (CAI) or Computer-Based Instruction (CBI). The main idea was that computers could provide individualized learning experiences, including interactive sequences consisting of problems or questions with appropriate feedback. All of this rested upon a sound theoretical basis of behavioral and early cognitive learning theory. And there was ample empirical evidence to show that it worked in terms of student achievements scores or learning outcomes. (Kearsley).

            There is an emerging broad consensus worldwide about the benefits that can be brought to school education through the appropriate use of evolving information and communication technologies. The range of possible benefits covers practically all areas of activity in which knowledge and communication play a critical role: from improved teaching and learning processes to better student outcomes, from increased student engagement to seamless communication with parents, and from school networking and twinning to more efficient management and monitoring within the school.

All in all, this is not surprising since the windows of opportunity that ICT offers for the development of knowledge economies and societies are open also for education. (Hine).

Bibliography

Cunningham, C. Instructional Technology for Teachers. Madison: Coursewise Publisher Inc.

Forcier, R. C. The Computer as an Educational Tool. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Merrill.

Granberg, E. M. (2000). How Technology Enhances Teaching and Learning.

Hine, P. (n.d.). UNESCO ICT Competency Framework for Teachers.

Kearsley, G. Online Education. Australia: Wadsworth Thomson Learning.