It's quarter to five in the afternoon and Professor X is teaching a class. New and exciting information has just come across the computer on his desk and it's perfect for tonight's topic. He manipulates it, saves it in HTML and stores it on his personal Web page. He opens a blank presentation and creates a few accompanying slides. The secretary just happens to still be here and is happy to stay late and run copies to accompany his presentation, which he transfers quickly to a disk. At the last minute, he discovers a useful article in one of the library's array of databases that will enhance the topic even further. Additional copies are made. He grabs the video he originally intended to show, takes his disk and the copies and heads on his way.
The classroom is fully equipped with a computer that connects to the Internet and is compatible with his disk, a video projection system, an overhead projector with transparency roll for last-minute notes, and a remote that controls all these devices plus the lights. His handouts are neatly collated, he has sufficient number for each student in the class and all the equipment works first time, every time. At the touch of a finger, he switches easily among the video, his Web page, his presentation and the notes on the overhead projector. His students are completely engaged, ask pertinent and relevant questions, and follow his lead from their laptops, which connect at each seat in the classroom. As the term goes by, this happens over and over again, three times a week for 16 weeks.
As the students would say, "In your dreams."
The most technologically capable among us are currently unable to guarantee such a scenario on a one-time basis, let alone time after time through a term or a year. If you break down the dream, here are some of the challenges: Unrealistic customer/user expectations resulting from oversell and oversimplification in movies, television and other media.
- Hardware, software and networks that are more reliable than they used to be, but not where we need them.
- Last-minute discoveries that occasionally work and last-minute requests that don't.
- Copyright issues that currently are under national and international debate. Incompatibility between when service is needed and when it can be provided.
- Faculty and staff who are growing in their understanding of technology, but who are at varying levels of development.
- Incompatibility between how good teachers work (e.g., spontaneity) and the current limitations of technology (e.g., significantly advanced planning).
- That old bugbear-insufficient time-exacerbated by the need to prepare different levels of presentation (handouts, overheads, presentation on disk, Web) just to hedge against potential technological failure during the class.
Assuming a faculty member is prepared to invest significant time in preparing a "high-tech" class and that the delivery goes fairly well (i.e., not too many glitches), there is still an enormous amount of "behind the scenes" time and labor necessary to create the environment for such a class to happen. In the scenario outlined, the following is needed long before the faculty member hits the classroom:
- Buildings and equipment must be wired, installed, tested and readied to whatever level is required. Similar wiring and equipment, maintenance and troubleshooting are needed for the faculty member in his or her office and also, possibly, at home.
- Regular maintenance is needed, along with intermittent troubleshooting (immediate and long-term). Do we have staff on hand during all class hours? Do we have enough to cover multiple problems in multiple classrooms at once? Can we "re-set" the equipment between classes so that the next faculty member can run a completely different program?
- Education and training is needed so that the faculty member can use the equipment, create presentations, find information, download, print and work the technological environment. Or will the faculty member know this already? Will he be willing and have the time to learn this? You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. Will he want it done for him? Is this realistic? The answers will vary with the faculty member and the situation.
- Teams are needed at both traditional and non-traditional hours. They should be equally conversant with the hardware and software on their desks and the instructional needs that serve faculty and students. These staff/faculty teams need individuals from multiple disciplines, e.g., technical, information, research and administrative partners. Library services are required, along with further education and training, on the use of electronic information. In addition to traditional and research services, they need to provide e-mail consultation, office and possibly home consultation, remote reference, extensive Web pages that consolidate information needed by their clientele, continued maintenance of traditional materials (books, journals, microfiche, etc.), all usually within existing staff and budgetary constraints.
- Copyright permission may or may not be required for articles, videos, etc., depending on the applicability of the fair use doctrine. If the process of seeking permissions is successful at all, it can take weeks, even months, and require a good deal of work and persistence to accomplish.
The advent and growth of technology has resulted in an incredible increase in the labor and costs of delivering education. It has also increased tremendously the stress and strain on individuals who are caught between wanting to use or provide technology to improve and enhance the educational experience and wanting it all just to go away. There are those who want the latest and best, and want it now. At the other end of the spectrum, there are those who refuse to use e-mail "on principle." In the middle are the majority who are often pushed into the technology when they are ill-prepared and unready psychologically. They are pressured by students, campus administration, our current technological culture, into using technology before it makes sense for their particular classroom environment. The key is to enable each faculty member to teach in the most effective way for that micro-environment of faculty member and subject being taught, not for the technology.
No sooner do we have the latest and best than it is outmoded and "old hat." From corporations to education comes the question, "Is it worth the money?" From those who support and deliver these services comes the question, "Is it worth the grief?" Expectations have far outstripped reality. The pressure that results when someone is "on stage" and something doesn't work is enormous. Displacement sets in. Professor X yells at support staff member Y who yells at subordinate Z who goes home and kicks the dog. The next day, the cycle repeats itself and tensions mount. By the end of term, the only one no longer snarling is probably the dog, whose kennel is mercifully neither wired nor equipped with a computer.
What can we do?
Collectively, we need to face up to a few uncomfortable truths:
All that glitters is not necessarily all we should have. While technological developments continue to outstrip our capability to absorb them, many of us have more on our desktops now than we can or are able to use. It's time to assess what needs to be replaced and upgraded, and time to assess whether the newest, glitziest gizmo is really in our best interest.
Is keeping up with Jones University really where we ought to be headed? How many times do we want the latest and greatest simply to keep up with a competitor university, and how many times do we want that same new technology to solve a real problem that is facing us now? How do we deal with the unfortunate fact that this is part of the pressure?
On the one hand, we need to consider a pull rather than push strategy. What's the use of requiring every faculty member or class to have a Web page if it just sits there? It sounds great-every class/every professor at Jones U. provides a Web page-but if it is not integrated into the classroom or not even used as a supplement, it's a waste of time. Better to work with those who want a Web page and leave those that don't alone. In time, odds are good the students will drive the need for a Web page, but by then, hopefully, it will serve a purpose other than allowing PR people to boast.
On the other hand, when pull becomes push, whether by students or some other driving force, we need to be realistic about what is feasible. Once the driving force is in place, the tendency is to view the situation as a crisis. The pressure to produce instant and complete solutions may not be possible for a number of reasons - scale, workload, cost, time frame, competing priorities.
We need to remember that the technological pressures don't just affect the traditional classroom. The same faculty/staff who are participating in teams to create the modern classroom are also being pressured for services to other areas of the university-high-end technology experiments for research and nontraditional teaching such as distance learning, financial operations, admissions, career placement and planning, research institutes, publishing, physical facilities, and the list goes on.
We need to face change. It's easy to proselytize about change when it applies to other people, but it's much harder to face it oneself. How often are we willing to advocate change when it is our world that's being changed? It's human nature to burrow in when the storm blows, but in the end, it's difficult to avoid. University is our name and education's our game. It is possible for those of us who teach also to learn. It is also our responsibility to do so and to make the time to do so.
While we're on the subject of education, our biggest challenge is the enormous gap between those who know and those who don't. The technologically unsure are often so overwhelmed, they don't know where to start. The technologically literate and partially literate sometimes assume more knowledge than they have. We need to increase our educational efforts for our own faculty and staff, not just for our students, and work toward an acceptance of and participation in that education.
In the end, we need to communicate-i.e., human communication. This is neither new nor technological, but it may be the key to managing both. We are currently running around trying to cope with tasks when we need to sit down and talk. What do we really need? What are the key problems we face? Among the array of needs, what priorities should we set? What balance should we strike between push and pull strategies? Can technology, which is only a tool after all, help us to address these problems? If so, go for it. If not, leave it alone.
And by the way, watch out for the dog on your way by.
Aline Soules is director of the Kresge Business Administration Library and Edward Adams is director of Computing Services, at the University of Michigan Business School. soulesa@umich.edu, edadams@umich.edu