President’s Message:
Teaching with Technology
By Bruce Saulnier
Quinnipiac University
In September of 1967 I was a junior at Defiance College in Ohio working as a student assistant for the Mathematics Department. Our department chair, Dr. Fallon, had just received a grant to purchase the first computer on our campus, and it was delivered to our department. My job was to help Dr. Fallon set up that wonderful machine, an IBM 1130 that worked on stand-alone punch card technology.
When the time came to apply to graduate school, I was seriously considering applying for graduate study in philosophy. But my judgment told me there was probably not much of a market for out-of-work philosophers. So instead I applied to graduate programs in the fledgling field of computer science. The rest, as they say, is history.
Now some 35 years into the computer field, I gasp in awe at how far we have come. Students and faculty are computer literate far beyond our most optimistic predictions. Increasingly large shares of college and university budgets are being devoted to the technological infrastructure of our campuses. And the pressure to “keep up with the Jones’s” and employ the latest in technological tools and distance education in our courses are being felt by all in higher education.
But in our rush to employ the latest technology in our classes, to give the impression to our audiences/clients (students, alumni, donors, the public, etc.) that we are on the “cutting edge” of technology, are we sometimes guilty of “letting the tail wag the dog?” Are we using the technology consistent with the research base of what constitutes sound pedagogy? Are we merely automating existing course delivery processes, or are we truly re-engineering our processes to make the best use of the technology? How do we “separate the wheat from the chaff?”
Please join me in digesting the contents of this issue of Connexions as we continue to learn from each other how we may best employ technology in our classes and continue on our journey of discovery of what it means to be a teacher.