• View
• Edit
• History
• Print

2008D11Rodrigo

National TYCA Interview Project: Righting the Realities of Persistent Challenges in Teaching with Technologies (Onsite and Online)
Reviewed by Shelley Rodrigo
rrodrigo@mail.mc.maricopa.edu

David Wong, Santa Barbara City College
Beyond the Technical: Training Programs and Practices to Promote

Based on interviews of people at colleges with a long history of computer use in English instruction, he presented the following conditions needed for training to flourish on campuses:

1. Hire or reassign a permanent/contract English department faculty member in the role of technology leader.
2. Develop a departmental process for identifying, selecting, implementing, and assessing technology initiatives that is shared and public.
3. Provide training that is pedagogically rather than technologically focused and make it available in a variety of forms, e.g., one-to-one mentoring, department in-service workshops, and general technology training workshops.
4. Create teaching conditions that allow for experimentation and feedback.
5. Ensure sufficient quantities of classrooms/labs and staffing.
6. Ensure technical support that is responsive and timely.
7. Solicit administrative financial and resource support.
8. Get involved in your college, transfer universities, and professional communities such as TYCA.

I would have liked to see Wong situate these results within a review of literature about teaching with technology; therefore, he may then have moved beyond this list to providing suggestions for making it happen. The past decade, even two, of publications about teaching with technology, both within the fields of computers and writing and in educational technology, have emphasized things like focusing on pedagogy, providing layers of support, and situating use within a specific discipline. Instead of this list, I want to know what are some of the best practices that address some of these needs that those of us at other institutions (not only community colleges) could steal for ourselves. However, I am still thankful they have done the research because so much of the research mentioned above was done at four-year institutions; it is important to have research from the community college context.

Jane Wagoner Righting the Realities of Higher Attrition and Limited Access in Online Instruction

Wagoner reported out on major issues gleaned from survey results:

• Course design—Design is important; most English faculty not take instructional design. There needs to be space for practicing (so that the faculty member knows the technology prior to working with the students).
• Need to talk to advising—Many advisors are highly encouraging students to take online courses to fit their already too busy schedules. This practice is setting up students for failure. Wagoner emphasized that for a lot of students course success is based on initial contact with students knowing exactly what they are getting into before the beginning of the term.
• Orientation—For many places there was no orientation, or one during the first week of classes. Wagoner argued that the ideal orientation comes before classes begin.
• Intervention strategies—Wagoner specifically suggested enforcing that students use email on the school’s system, not their own accounts, and that faculty reach out to non-participating students using email and the telephone.
• Enrollment—Wagoner says that faculty reported online or hybrid classes took more work and most of the time they did not enroll a smaller number of students.
• Access—Wagoner reminds us that many community college students do not resemble the “typical” image of the college student with laptop, cell phone, and gaming system in hand and do not necessarily have easy access to various computer technologies.

Again, I do not think anything here is typically shocking; I’m wondering if we can push some of these suggestions further. For example, instead of being afraid that we’ll be “caught with our pants down” because we don’t understand all of the technology, can we reconceive our relationship with our students so that they are aware we are still learning these technologies as well? I find that my students are actually relieved knowing that I still have glitches and problems too. Although I agree with having orientation sessions, and that having them prior to the actual class start-date can be helpful, college organized ones are rarely useful when an instructor is trying newer technologies in his or her class. I am thrilled that Wagoner reminds us that many community college students do not have the technological access that four-year students have; I’m constantly having to remind my colleagues of that in technology panels and at technology conferences. However, I think issues of access do get us to continue exploring open source, free ware, and web-based alternatives. Finally, I will question forcing students to use institutional email systems, some of which can be woefully outdated? Can we reminder ourselves of their discomfort by continually making sure we are also pushing our own boundaries?