Big Picture Instructional Technology: models for Planning, Piloting, Promoting, and Partnering
It's been some time since I last posted. I've been very busy! I was lucky enough to attend two Northeast Regional Computing Program workshops (at my employer's expense) and got some very interesting things that I can post about.
This seminar primarily focused on the adoption and implementation of new technologies at Hamilton College, and Skidmore College. The focus question was How do we plan and manage technology support for multiple courses involving hundreds of students and dozens of faculty and varied technologies within the limitations of our instructional technology resources?
While it's been a few weeks, I did take pretty good notes on my ipod (my new toy). Hamilton College discussed using the scaffolding approach for student support for projects. Their instructional technologists are allied very closely with the library and rely on coordination between academic support units and collaboration with invested faculty members. They try to work out expectations and limitations in advance so students aren't disrupted.
They employ student assistants who are trained according to the process involved in generating procedures for technology projects; not necessarily focusing on just the technology, but looking at the big picture. Course information is shared with the students so they can best assist their peers.
One of the more interesting points raised was that faculty members need to be self-reliant in terms of troubleshooting new technologies and their integration into instruction. The role advocated at this seminar was one of an enabler; supporting the initiatives of instructors and providing the know-how and resources necessary for their goals.
We broke into groups for an activity where each table was to discuss a particular piece of technology after the Hamilton College presentation. Our group talked about using clickers in large lecture hall environments and the challenges that each person encountered when implementing that technology. Since I had never used an iclicker, (this seemed to be the generic term, even though other companies make them as well) it was interesting to hear what instructional technologists had to say about them in real world applications. It ranged from mostly positive, with instructors raving about them, and using them in a wide range of applications ranging from quizzes to attendance to a slightly sadder tale of boxes filled to the brim and hardly ever being used at another school.
Following the activity Skidmore spoke about their process of adopting supported technologies from pilot programs. Here is a very rough outline of their process and a short explanation of each point:
Emerging technologies - Being the first step, instructors are more or less on their own to support their grand idea. Instructional technologists will lend a helping hand occasionally, but it's made clear to the instructor that their infant technology will only be attended to once all officially supported technologies have been taken care of.
If the technology is successful, it may be chose for a pilot program. In this pilot, instructional technologists would grant slightly more assistance. Most troubleshooting must still be self-directed by the instructor.
An expanded pilot program would be next, with adoption widening and assistance also slightly expanding. At this point the decision is made whether it is worth it to pursue the training and the time to officially offer the service to all faculty and to take the role of full responsibility for troubleshooting and diagnosis should problems arise.
I'll be honest, my attention began to wane at this point, but one representative of Skidmore did present to us an annual expo they do for new technologies called the Technology Festival. I'll post more about this later. It looked like a great idea