Changes in Technology
I think it important to note here that those changes have been both good and ill. That is, not all changes in technology have been necessarily for the best, and sometimes changes in educational software packages have been instructionally disastrous.
When I was working on a certificate in instructional technology a few years ago, the university offering the program changed software at the halfway point of my studies. The students in my cohort started the program with a text-based bulletin board system in which they dialed in to a toll free number, downloaded all new material, worked off line, then dialed back in to upload their messages and get still more new materials.
We were switched, with very little notice, to a "new" and "better" web-based system. It's true that it was easier to handle media in the new environment; however, we were now (and suddenly) required to have an always-on connection, to be on the web for as long as we worked. And for many of us, it meant that a very reasonable technical demand ("you must have a modem installed on your computer") went to a much more complex set of requirements, requirements that demanded a faster connection and left students without separate phone lines for their modem unable to use their phones the entire time they were working on their class.
Thus, not all so-called advances are in fact better; as technologies become more complex, we may find our students, in effect, locked out of our classrooms.
