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College Technology 'Catching Up' With Students
USA TODAY via Yellowbrix
October 06, 2009
Abilene Christian University freshmen receive more than the usual campus map and lists of required books when they enter the Texas university.
For the past two years, they’ve also received an iPhone or iPod Touch from the university before they begin classes.
At Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, a select group of freshmen received Kindles, an online book reader, instead of the textbooks.
And at Central Michigan University in Mt. Pleasant, a new $50 million education building has 75 miles of Internet networking cable and 11 miles of phone cable, allowing out-of-town students to link with the classroom.
Today’s college classrooms are high-tech marvels, with overhead projectors and grease pencils replaced by document cameras, hand-held clickers and interactive white boards.
“A lot of this is us catching up with the students and what they’re bringing to us,” says Michael Reuter, 42, director of technology operations at Central Michigan.
Faculty, for the most part, see technology as a way to better connect to students in their interactive, multitasking, apps-ready world.
“A lot of people my age see technology as a tool to check e-mail and do grades. But for kids, the technology is just the environment that they know,” says Howard Pitler, senior director of curriculum and instruction at McREL, an education research non-profit in Denver. “When I was a middle school principal eight years ago, I taught a class in multimedia and was supposed to be the expert, but every day, kids were teaching me stuff I didn’t know. Teachers need to see that everybody in the class is a teacher.”
‘Wild experimentation’ for some
At Abilene Christian, where students and faculty get the Apple devices for free but are responsible for monthly charges, about 2,800 students and 70% of the 250 professors use the Apple technology for instructional purposes. An art teacher has students use an application that allows them to do a draft sketch and send it to the teacher and other students for advice before starting the real art pieces. A drama teacher takes video of the lead dancer in a production and sends that along to other students for rehearsal.
Cha0906
about 1 month ago
Here in the Philippines we are not fully updated about the latest technology. I hope the government, private sectors, and private institutions would take encourage the students to be updated of the latest technology. Thanks Fastweb, for this info. Since our country is under development, most of the students are not fully informed. Lucky are those students in the Western countries. And see, some of the universities giving free ipod, itouch, and netbooks. And please pray for our country, we are struggling now in flood and typhoons that hit the country.
RobinH301
about 1 month ago
My school is giving away the iTouch but it's the 2nd gen 16GB. With that amount of money, I prefer a netbook or laptop, since everyone basically has a iPhone or iTouch and the computers in the labs gets crowded quick when it's time for midterms and finals.