Moving Beyond the Crossroads
From CTLpedia
Contents |
Moving Beyond the Crossroads: Technology & Higher Education in the 21st Century
The impact of computers on higher education have relatively quickly shifted from helping the registrar track student transcripts and faculty type up their lectures to being an integral component of almost every aspect of higher education from student recruitment through alumni outreach. The even faster rate with which new, and radically updated, technologies emerge on the scene constantly place faculty, staff, and administrators at a crossroad, deciding:
- Should I invest time and energy to research this technology?
- Should we invest energy and resources to adopt this technology?
- Should we invest resources and time to promote and support this technology?
We find ourselves constantly bogged down with making the immediate decisions without spending the critically important time to construct a vision for how technology should and could support our institutional goals in the next 5, 10, even 20 years. We will kick-off the dialogue day listening to Cole Camplese about "Opportunities for Digital Expression." We will then work through three activities that helping to envision the future of technology and higher education, identify the variety of stakeholders involved in that vision, and brainstorm the issues required to making that vision a reality.
Agenda
- 9:00am Check In
- 9:10am Welcome
- 9:20am Introduce Cole Camplese (Veronica Diaz)
- 9:30am Cole Camplese "Building a Platform for Innovation in Teaching and Learning" (click the link for copies of his slides)
- 10:30am Q&A
- 10:45am Visioning Activity: Where do you want your office, classroom, library, student services, college to be in 10-20 years?
- 11:45am Lunch w/Discussion Prompt at the Table: Diversity of Stakeholders Activity
- 1:10pm Strategic Brainstorming: What are the issues and elements that need to be addressed?
- 2:55pm Conclusions
Material Collected from the Activities
We will use the material collected from these activities to help direct MCC's technology strategic planning endeavors. We took pictures throughout the day.
Visioning Activity
Notes from when tables reported out during our Visioning Activity (thanks Craig & Devon). Participants were asked to think about where/how/while MCC will be in the next 20-50 years.
It’s hard to answer because you want to think traditionally but we need to break down the static walls & create an organic space devoid of paper. No paper. All electronic. Bits & bytes floating around in a profoundly non-corporeal space. Way more streamlined. No more going from place to place to process anything. GLOBAL (and beyond) education where it doesn’t matter who is signed up for what. We create classes based on INTEREST and interest ALONE. A virtual space beyond the limited walls, limited censors, limited minds, limited cultures.
No more censoring what we discuss in a class. No more classes in rooms with specific times to be there doing that. Learning is organic, asynchronous & synchronous simultaneously. Students take classes based on needs & interests rather than someone telling them what they need to take in order to get a piece of paper. Locale is no longer important. You could be in the same class when ANYONE demographically. ANYONE, and you would not know them physically. That doesn’t matter now. Avatars represent people however they want to be represented. Individuals CHOOSE who and what they are. They CHOOSE how they learn, what they learn.
- Equally accessible
- Individual logins
- Can we teach through Gaming?
- More access
- Team teaching (experts teach interdisciplinarily)
- Flexibility – culture of tolerance
- Teach flexibility & skill tool sets
- Flexibility of work environment
- Looking for continuity & accessibility. Getting away from technology isolation.
- We need to have adequate resources, but also IT support as well (more IT support).
- Symposium on a yearly basis, where faculty can showcase their technology uses from their classes.
- Flexibility & Freedom and how to create an ideal classroom.
- Technology teachers need support and need a way to access that support instantaneously.
- Technology should expand teaching temporally & spatially.
- We need to get away from an agriculturally based calendar & time frame.
- People can be educated at their own pace & interests.
- Escape our cultural paradigm.
- We need to look at how to keep student’s interested (in our school).
- How do we get the kids to buy in? How do we market to Net-Geners?
- Faculty need to change to meet the needs of the students, not Vice Versa.
- Freedom of space & time.
- Teach less traditionally.
- Students drop out & drop in depending on their interests.
- Equal access to resources, tech support, etc…
- More interdisciplinary involvement.
- Faculty need to change, not the students.
- Hybrid learning; people are still use to physical contact.
- Face to Face with Remote Access
Diversity of Stakeholders Activity
During lunch tables discussed who are important people to involve in this process. We took pictures of their resulting lists. See the resulting images at Shelley's Flickr site.
The resulting list includes the following individuals and groups:
- people with disabilities (students, faculty, staff & community)
- faculty
- staff
- students (needs)
- community
- CTL
- community partners
- business partners
- president
- VP of Instruction
- IT (leadership, server staff)
- Governing Board
- MCCCD
- Industry
- Public
- Departments
- Legislature
- prospective employers
- incoming students
- certificate programs
- K-12 community
- universities
- occupational employers
- partents
- taxpayers
- global perspective students
- ESL/ELL students
- global employers
- chamber of commerce
- district support service
- EOLT
- gamers
- technophiles
- technophones
- techno savvy students
- community leaders (ethnic group leaders)
- Adjunct Faculty
- Residential Faculty
- Dept. Secretaries/Staff
- Health Fields
- Office of Research & Planning
Many of the posters mentioned issues related to these groups, concerns about how/why to involved them, and possible methods to communicate with them.
Strategic Brainstorming (Issues & Concerns) Activity
Coming Soon!
