Faculty Development Tips and Talking Points:
1) Use the Internet daily for communication, news, and recreation. Play.
2) Subscribe to and use listservs (scholarly networks) in your field (as well as ones that focus on distance education and using technology in the classroom).
3) Develop web pages and sites. Focus on creating useful sites for your work and teaching, but don't be afraid to create sites for fun and pleasure (test your limits and play).
4) Collect online resources in your discipline. Collect the best resources and put the links on a page for your use and your students. Challenge your students to find better resources (discuss and evaluate the ones they find; it can be a great learning experience).
5) Keep current with the literature about computer-assisted instruction (both print and online materials).
6) Write for online journals. It can be a fast and fun way to publish your work.
7) Incorporate technology into your classes. As we know, the best way to learn something is to teach it. Do not be afraid to let students be the experts and to help you. Having students help can be a great way to work toward a student-centered classroom.
8) Re-orientate the paradigm of the classroom for students to include technology. For instance - class discussion - instead of class discussion as something that happens in class, have students discuss materials virtually before and after class. Make those discussions an integral part of the class and revisit the discussions that happen there.
9) Integrate technology slowly into the classroom. Create a resource that can be augmented every term and integrate new technologies as they are mastered.
10) Partner with a graduate or undergraduate student(s) to build classroom or discipline based resources. This student should know technology, but be within the discipline.
11) Integrate technology into your research and work. Use the computer to write, model, and analyze. Use the Internet for research and scholarship.
Institution Development Tips and Talking Points:
1) Invest in peopleware as well as hardware. Too often institutions spend their funds on buying equipment but not on developing the expertise to use it and use it well in the classroom and for scholarship.
2) Provide user-friendly support, both technical support and implementation support. Help students compose with technology instead of simply learning to use it. Help teachers teach with technology instead of simply learning it.
3) Create a culture of technology. The institution (colleges and departments) should use technology for day-to-day business and communications.
4) Set up physical technology that lends itself well to teaching and learning with technology. Let the instructors who will use the computer labs design the labs. Design computer labs that lend themselves to discussion and group work. Design regular classrooms that allow technology to be used (internet connections and projectors).
5) Give both faculty members and students free access to the Internet (on and off campus). Allow them space to publish web pages.
6) Build creative computing centers to help with technology and course design. If possible, create discipline specific computer labs that have hardware, software, and an environment suited for teaching with technology in that discipline.
7) Hire people who are experts in both technology and teaching. Computer experts are important for designing and maintaining your computer system, but they may not be the best at helping people use technology in specific disciplines, teaching people how to use technology, or developing online learning resources. That is, make available support people who offer more than technical help. Hardware, software, and other technical help is important, but, more important, is providing discipline based support for integrating technology into the classroom.
8) Support faculty workshops. Infrequent short sessions are of little value. Develop intensive, extended workshops that reward faculty members for attending.
9) Encourage peer tutoring. Students often are the best teachers of other students. Augment your current writing center (or create a digital writing center) so that it has online writing consultants (students) who can help other students with their online projects.
10) Develop classroom presentations on web publishing and Internet research. These presentations can be great for faculty members who would like to allow students to do online projects but who do not want to learn the technology.
11) Provide venues for faculty members, students and staff to share their expertise and online projects. Use peer groups to support training.
12) Create campus wide workshops and seminars for students, staff, and faculty. These should address basic needs: building web pages, using email, scanning and digitizing materials.
13) Support workshops for faculty members to discuss and learn how new technologies are being used in their disciplines and in their classrooms. Support a speaker series that brings in people who have developed online resources and used technology in their classrooms.
14) Recognize those who use technology in their teaching and have them model their practices for other faculty members. Recognize and reward teachers who use technology since it does take extra time and effort.
15) Support special projects by giving select faculty members the time and resources to work on extended projects. Focus on content rich projects and avoid those that simply warehouse links.
16) Help make students critical and not passive users of technology especially within their disciplines. Help faculty members become technology experts in their discipline so they may also help to make students more critical consumers and users of technology. Build convention awareness.
17) Start a technology center (or group) in each department responsible for consulting, teaching, and gathering the best resources in that discipline.
18) Integrate technology and online projects into degree requirements and required courses.
19) Develop courses that train students within disciplines to use information technologies. These courses should have internship components that require students to work with faculty members to create online learning resources.
20) Create Computer labs available to both students and faculty members. The labs should be staffed with support help and be open as many hours as possible. Create labs that have various kinds of technology and software to support a wide range of use.
21) Support a variety of platforms.
22) Avoid adopting courseware for the whole institution. Allow users to decide what will work best in their discipline. Despite the promises of salespeople, when it comes to information technologies and online course design, one size never fits all.
23) Emphasize technology as a crucial literacy for students to attain during their academic careers.
24) Do not expect technology to allow for increased student loads. Technology can lower costs of maintaining physical space (classes can be held in virtual classrooms), but using technology requires more of the instructor's time as he/she meets the needs of individual students. Thus distance courses should have fewer students than f-2-f courses.
25) Support graduate student training. Training in technology can help them on the job market and institutions have found that the best way to train faculty is through their students (students will often help faculty member to create resources).
26) Revise merit pay and tenure requirements to recognize work with technology both in the classroom and through online publication.
Technology Training Tips and Talking Points:
1) Training needs to be hands on. Do short 10-15 minute demonstrations and then allow students (faculty members) to work on techniques and concepts.
2) Avoid the "presentational mode." Long presentations or lectures about technology may work as good introductions to possibilities but they rarely help students learn how to use the technology in the context of their work or the classroom.
3) Be institutionally specific. Develop resources and explanations that "fit" the information technologies available at your institution. Students who attend workshops at other places often return to their home institutions and find it difficult to apply what they have learned because of different systems and software.
4) Be recursive and repetitive. A carefully planned linear step-by-step approach may look good on paper but it will not help your students. People will do best if they repeat steps often. It also helps in the process to keep returning to and connecting with earlier material.
5) Before training sessions decide what are the most basic and important things to be learned by the students. Repeat these things often. Don't try to do too much in any one session.
6) Allow time for practice and play. Ideally students should be allowed to repeat steps at least three times. Letting students "play" with web pages, colors, and images (as well as "pushing" all of the buttons on new programs) helps them to overcome their fears. It also helps them to learn how to learn new technologies.
7) Have students work on specific projects. Students learn technology best if they learn it in the context of doing something else. In a one-day session, your goal may be to have students create and publish their home pages. In a week-long workshop, you may have faculty members create an online learning resource. Straight teaching of technology does little to help teachers and students integrate technology into their daily practices because they do not see or experience its utility. They learn through use.
8) Allow students time to explore and play with resources that are similar to those they will be creating. For example, if your goal is to have students create online art exhibits, you may want them to visit several online museums and galleries. Discussing examples as a group can be very helpful.
9) Create both online and print resources for students. Students often do best if they can return to and review materials they have learned. Faculty members often do best when they have printed resources to review.
10) Have students learn the basics of HTML. With the advances in web editors, it is possible to avoid learning HTML. However, all current editors can cause problems "behind the scenes" with the HTML and it is good to know how to fix things. Learning HTML will also help them do more advanced work with scripts and forms. Yet, most important, learning a bit about HTML and the "text only" nature of web pages helps students to conceptualize how the Internet works and how web sites are designed.
11) Focus on and repeat the steps about File Transfer (FTP). FTP is the backbone of any online project and, as with HTML, learning how to do it well helps students to conceptualize how the Internet works.
12) Work on conceptualizing and putting in context what students are learning to do with the information technologies. Like all subjects, students can memorize steps without gaining literacy. This can best be done by integrating technology within specific disciplines or tasks.
13) Take students inside of the computer. Often holding computer parts helps them to conceptualize (visualize) how things are working. As with learning HTML and FTP, getting inside of the computer helps demystify the technology.
14) Leave time for "open computer lab," a time when students can come in and use the computers and repeat on their own what they have learned.
15) Encourage collaborative learning. Students often learn best from other students and from helping other students.
16) Encourage the sharing of expertise. Students (faculty members) will enter your workshop with varying levels of expertise. Let them share their knowledge and ideas. Leave time at the end of the workshop (or session) for students to share what they have created.
17) Short infrequent sessions are rarely helpful. Longer intensive sessions work best. In the best of all possible worlds, one- to two-week (full-day) workshops are best. They can often be most successful if faculty members are rewarded for attending.
18) Supply ways to follow up on workshops. Connect people through a listserv to continue sharing ideas. Have them meet periodically (over lunch, at a refresher session, or during a party) to talk about how they are using technology in the classroom. Have old workshop groups meet with new workshop groups to share experiences.
19) Remember that "playing" with computers can be fun so make it fun by finding interesting ways to present information. Also allow time for students to test limits and fail.