We were asked to read Dennis Trinkle’s review of DePauw University’s current technology model. I’m not going to critique the document as a whole, instead choosing to share my responses to select portions. As such, my statements are not designed to be read separate from the article. The article is available here: http://www.educause.edu/LibraryDetailPage/666?ID=EQM0543

Put Learning First
To begin, the title of this key factor should sum up any academic organization and is exactly where it should be at the top of the list. Reading through the single paragraph (you don’t need much more than this to state the obvious), there are a few questions about selecting technology: “What are your learning goals and outcomes? What problems are you trying to solve? What do you wish you could accomplish? What is currently frustrating you?” These are all excellent questions and the type which should be used during any Needs Assessment. My background with Instructional Design is mostly based on the Dick and Carey approach, but most ID processes include an up-front, in-depth analysis to truly identify the root goal or problem. An example often used is to identify the cause of the illness instead of prescribing medicine to dry up the sniffles.

I often like to identify the needs assessment as the step which allows you to separate reaction from response. The former often taking place without forethought and the latter being a course selected after looking at the broader context. In my life, a lack of needs assessment at some key moments have left a lot of tooth marks on my derriere. As a result (and with my derriere’s demands) I try to make time for this during all major life decisions.

More information on Needs Assessment is available here.

Technology Fluency is the New Liberal Art
My response to this section is not positive. I would not argue with the content of the statement, but I do believe this step is extremely dependent on a body of faculty willing to swap their teacher hats for learner hats on a regular basis. The current context of technology in education allows too much for the faculty to step aside so students are allowed direct access to technologists. While that form of information flow can work, it is far from a best practice. While I am able to bring a great number of tools to the student experience, I am only a content matter expert in select areas. Once outside of those areas, my ability to remain empathic with student needs begins to harvest diminishing returns.

The first recognition in the article is “As a liberal art, technology must be taught at the level of critical thinking and reasoning” with a further statement against basing technology learning opportunities on skills training and, instead, developing the learning opportunities into “higher order fluencies and habits of mind.” Under the second recognition, Trinkle says “Theory connected to practice leads to better learning.” This takes me back to my studies at UVA in which Dr. Kinzie always pushed “Know how instead of show how.” The core purpose being that, at the end of good instruction, students will truly understand the methods as well as the underlying principles instead of walking away with a recipe of how to handle a process in a single program.

Invest in People and Support
In History of Instructional Technologies, I prepared and presented a paper on best practices in the dissemination of technology into public schools. The strongest message I encountered in my research was the need to set aside a healthy 10% of any technology budget for training and support. In article after article, there was a common theme about how school systems routinely choose to spend as close to 100% as possible on visible technology. An overall concern was the need for a maximum amount of available, and visible to the taxpayers, resources. But, by resources, they often meant computers, software and projectors and rarely meant workshops, money for courses or the ability to travel for learning opportunities. This often results in a greater number of resources which also remain underused throughout their life-cycle.

But, Trinkle goes even further with a wicked (yes, I said wicked) statement, referinng to work by Jeffrey Young’s article “When Good Technology Means Bad Teaching.” Trinkle says “…that giving teachers technology without training has often done more harm than good to teachign and learning.” Harsh, to say the least. Some might even take this statement as anti-technology. But I think it is not the case. It should be a banner on the wall of every academic technologist.

To back up his statement, I learned some great rules a few years ago in a random NMC event I selected to fill the last morning of the conference. I was really selecting the lesser of all evils by registering this class, but the content was extremely enlightening and I feel it has relevance to the current topic.

Unfortunately, the NMC website doesn’t go back that far, but the gentleman who gave the presentation was very well spoken. I wish I remembered his name or the title, but it was his message which has stuck with me over the years. He argued that time is the ultimate currency for identifying the value of technology. Money and recognition are excellent secondary reasons for selecting technology, but must be carefully weighed against the value of time.

With many years in an academic technology support role, he went on to describe how, as a trendsetter in this role, he made many mistakes. His experiences had taught him a few lessons and, from them, he had a few direct ways to consider the value of time from the faculty perspective. Please understand the following are my words and probably a poor reproduction of his.

Let’s begin with: always be honest about time commitments with new technologies. Failing to tell a faculty member how much time they will need to invest into a new technology is often reviewed the same as lying about the requirements. Be up front with the faculty so they can better judge their options. If you waste their time, they will be less likely to trust you in future endeavors. As such, never try to fast-talk faculty into embracing a technology without giving them all the facts. No, it doesn’t matter how cool and trendy and sexy that new technology seems at the time. If you take time away from faculty, it takes time away from prepping for classes, grading and time spent working directly with students.

Good metrics for identifying the value of technology include and are pretty much limited to the following:
- Technology should save time, if not in the short term, than in the long term. It is acceptable that a technology may take more time to master if the payoff truly reflects a time-saving incentive in the future.
- You may break the proceeding rule if the technology truly enhances understanding of content. I always think of maps as a great example of this. They must take a huge amount of time to create (and I have spent quite a bit of time making a few basic maps for alternate realities, though not a map of an existing place) but, without them, could you really visualize the layout of Europe or the streets of Washington D.C.?
- Technology can decrease the stress level during the learning process and should never increase the stress level during the learning process. Though I believe our current technological Dark-Ages (years from now we’ll all be telling our kids horror stories about running cables to devices) often do the opposite and increase the stress level for everyone involved. There are some great aspects of technology, but we should all try to be a little more honest about the limitations.

Good Enough is Good Enough
One of my peers used to say “80% on time and 100% late” was the motto of the military. I think you can broaden that to most of humanity. There may be some individuals who suffer from OCD (and the random messiah) who hits 100% all the time, but the rest of us have to accept our limitations. Less than 80 % is failure and more than 80% often limits the breadth of your spectrum in favor of depth. Medicine and other life-saving professions benefit from greater depth than breadth, but for the rest of us, we have to settle for “Good.” That’s okay.

Trinkle says “many institutions have failed to progress or achieve impact because they fall victim to analysis paralysis or the quest for perfection.” This immediately took me back to an article on Kaizen (http://www.lifehacker.com/software/kaizen/practice-your-personal-kaizen-207029.php) which I found interesting. I’m still thinking on this, so you’ll have to wait while my neurons chug away…

Actively Involve Students
In the article, they refer to DePauw’s ITAP program. The closest I think we come to this is our Technolgy Learning Center, which is a wonderful opportunity. While in grad school, I also spent one year working at UVA’s Digital Media Lab. The first semester was tough. In Dr. Bull’s class, I was learning the basic capabilities of Visual Basic, Dreamweaver, Photoshop and Cold Fusion. Meanwhile, in the DML, I was learning the entire Mac OS, PageMaker, Flash, Final Cut Pro, firewire connectivity, etc… The spectrum of information I was trying to assimilate was massive. But, I survived and maintained good grades (I should note I was also working part time for my father). And, when I look back on that time, from an educational standpoint, it might be my proudest moment. I don’t believe there is another time in my life where I had to learn so much at any one time (though I’m certain my infancy dwarfs it). Pulling through that much work without crumbling is a great accomplishment and a true example of the resiliency of man and what true perseverance is capable of delivering. All students should have those types of opportunities. It helps identify who you are and what you are capable of.

Collaboration is Essential
This is a serious issue, not just in higher education, but in “techy” cultures. Increased time to master/use technology has had a detrimental effect on our abilty to carve out time for the small group brainstorming which groups like Google use to create such brilliant and effective tools. I, though being a pretty major extrovert, really view staring at a screen as “work.” But, being in a group, discussing and working on projects is both invigorating and rewarding. I tend to look at that more as “playing” well with others. Okay, not all group meetings are like this. Some do such the life out of you, but I’m not talking about those meetings.

Wrapping it up
If you work in academia, read the article. It is rather brief and worth the time. Much of it is common sense, but also the type of rules we should follow yet often are set aside due to time, money or energy requirements. If nothing else, the article will sit in the back of you mind and give your conscious something to quote from when you need that extra bit of motivation.