How Technology Impacts Education

Introduction

Near the top of the list of critical issues in education is the appropriate use of technology in the educational process. It is clear that some type of investment in educational technology, specifically interactive computing, is essential for nearly all institutions, and indeed, many have made some purchases already. Despite that fact, the leadership of educational institutions face a complex set of problems in this regard. What portion of a (probably) shrinking budget should be allocated to this expanding area? Which options from a growing array of technological choices are the most appropriate for a particular environment? Which of these options are essentials, and which are luxuries? What sorts of technology will benefit students the most? What is needed now in order to keep from falling (even further) behind a few years hence?

Discussion and Analysis

The pressure to do something is great, and it is often exacerbated by arguments of efficiency that have little foundation in fact. For example, suggestions are often made that an investment in educational technology will help handle more students. This point of view may ultimately prevail, but little evidence on this point is currently available. Indeed, it appears that more faculty/staff effort is required to bring interactive technology into students' hands in a meaningful way. Often ignored is the amount of training necessary for a spectrum of novice users (Ehrmann, 18).

Another argument often made is that empowering students with interactive technology will somehow lessen pressure on the current (classical) library operation. Presumably, this effect will come about through access to the Internet resources. As currently constituted, the Internet carries information of widely varying quality, ranging from the systematic holdings of many of the fine libraries of the world to outright garbage (from an intellectual point of view). Information on the Internet (other than that from libraries) is often unedited or unorganized to the extent that potential users must employ reasonably sophisticated skills and insights to extract useful information from the abundance of dross.

These, of course, are the kinds of skills academe is expected to instill in undergraduates; they are not easily acquired by the "sink or swim" technique, which is often the way students learn to use electronic information systems. Clearly, if this is the only method of instruction we have to offer, students and their parents might be forgiven for questioning the value added by academe to this process. Content-oriented instructors who attempt to use interactive technology to help students learn currently have to spend a considerable amount of time and effort to address these kinds of issues, and, of course, such efforts are usually add-ons in most institutions, where little recognition or encouragement is afforded to the design and development of new courses. Augmenting a course with interactive technology takes considerably more effort than preparing a few new lecture for a standard course, a fact well understood by those who have tried.

Finally, there are the lurking problems associated with success. History tells us that very successful computation center operations ultimately attract ...