By Tom Coccagna

Then: A student doesn’t understand the math assignment and it’s late. With growing frustration, the student realizes it will have to wait until class or the professor’s office hours –whichever comes first.

Now (actually this summer): A student is having trouble with a math problem and sends an e-mail to the class’ instructor, Professor Lenny Jones, who offers immediate feedback and after a short exchange of e-mails, the problem is solved.

Such is the changing face of education. Each day, new technology embeds itself deeper and deeper into human consciousness. The classroom must keep pace, and instructors vie for the attention of students who are attracted by all sorts of gadgets.

E-mail, an innovation in the early 1990s, seems as if it has been around forever. Cell phones, once a novelty, now perform more tasks than a personal computer could twenty years ago. Like it or not, for our students, instant messaging, chat rooms, podcasts, picture phones, personal web pages and blogs have become part of the landscape and are not going away any time soon.

E-mail lowered the barrier between student and professor, making communication not only easier but also more informal. Often it encourages a dialogue. One that sometimes continues after the student no longer has classes with the professor.

But e-mail, while pervasive, is only one part of the techno-picture. The faculty has countered with innovations of their own.

Dr. Raymond Janifer, Sr., associate professor of English, has been proactive in integrating technology into his English classes. He is extremely fond of Blackboard, an on-line platform that provides a passageway to a variety of elements, including e-mail, discussion boards, assignment folders, course folders, external web links, private grade book, tests, and a virtual classroom.

“It gets rid of things you have to repeat over and over,” Janifer said, noting students can go on-line to access course materials they might have missed in class. “If someone loses a syllabus, they can get it on Blackboard. If someone has to make up a test, I can set it for a particular time. If they have to work and don’t get off until 11, I can set it for them to take the test between 11 and midnight.

“I used to have a filing cabinet filled with handouts I now have in the platform. I just need that one copy and they can print their own.”

Dr. Robert Rollins, professor of business information systems, has used Blackboard for a long time. He finds it especially helpful in graduate courses that meet half the time in person and half the time on-line. He posts materials, articles, even his PowerPoint slide presentations.

“Something like Blackboard used in conjunction with a formal class does add something to the experience,” Rollins said. “You can even use chat rooms. Students who want to know their grades or test scores can look them up, and you can keep them private.”

By using a password, students can get into Blackboard and view their progress in a course.

“The grade book is right there, so students can check their grades whenever they want,” Doreen Baringer, assistant professor of human communication studies, pointed out.

While Blackboard is popular, it’s also not always compatible with particular classes. “I need to see students and their non-verbal reactions,” Baringer said. “I like to have forums, but I don’t think they work well on Blackboard.”

The discussion board is a popular feature of Blackboard. Some professors require their students to post comments on discussion boards.

“That way they have a chance to say more than they could in class,” said Dr. Barbara Denison, assistant professor of sociology. “I’m looking for quality, not quantity. Someone saying, ‘I agree with the class’ is not quality.”

Ryan Payne, a junior social studies education major, says he is “not a huge fan of posting. Once in a while you get good discussion going…. When it works, it’s good, but there’s a lot of redundant information.”

On the whole, many would give technology a passing grade because of the ease of communication and the availability of class materials.

“I provide instant messaging for my on-line class,” Dr. Jamonn Campbell, assistant professor of psychology, noted. “I hold virtual office hours, and students can instant message me as much as they want to during those hours.”

Dr. Jim Ryland, professor of educational leadership and policy, credits technology with changing the quality of graduate education. “In a very positive way, technology has changed the relationship between faculty and student on the graduate level.” Just the addition of e-mail expanded the availability of a professor to students without any other changes. Previously students typically had time before and after their three-hour course to meet with professors.

But Ryland usually goes a step or two further in his application of technology by making it a course requirement. “When I make assignments for presentations or projects, I specify the number of different technologies they must use. We want our professionals to enter the field with practical knowledge of the technology so they can make informed recommendations in their workplace. As a result, the impact of technology expands beyond Shippensburg University.”

Dr. Carol Wellington, professor of computer science, is recording discussions in her classes with video of what is on her computer, then publishing them as podcasts.

“My students need to learn problem solving and reasoning strategies, so much of the content of my class is discussion. When I stopped to write notes on the board, the discussions came to a halt, so I wasn’t documenting the discussions and the students weren’t taking any notes. Now the students can review not only my PowerPoint slides and our discussions, but also examples of how to use the tools we require.

“The surprise was the students didn’t listen to them alone. Instead they played them on desktops in study groups. They could pause the playback, ask each other questions to clarify the points we had been making in class.” Wellington also reports that after she added podcasts to her class, the grades improved dramatically, “up an average of fourteen percent.”

Technology is affecting colleges in ways no one could have imagined a quarter-century ago. Some examples:

• At Montclair State University in New Jersey, students are given a mandatory cell phone which allows the school to locate them at any time, on or off campus. The school maintains the program is for safety so that in extreme or dangerous circumstances the whereabouts of a student can be pinpointed.
• Morrisville State College in New York has taken all land-line telephones out of its dorms and replaced them with cell phones. Mike Bonafair, director of telecommunications at Shippensburg, says the university is evaluating many services and programs but has no timeline for moving away from land lines. “Any change in the provision of standard telephone services (hard lines) will have to include a more thorough understanding of how emergency (911) communications will be handled in a campus environment,” Bonafair said.
• Many instructors are having students download class lectures and other materials onto their iPods. One professor at Georgia State College has students download 39 films onto their iPods so she doesn’t have to use class time for watching films.
• The University of Pennsylvania had its incoming freshmen do on-line journal entries on personalized “academic blog” pages. Only the student, an academic adviser, and authorized university officials are able to view the pages.
• The University of Texas is heading toward a bookless library system, with more than 60,000 volumes available last fall. The downside: The report indicated that while the move will help students find information, “it will also increase the probability of plagiarism because digital information is so easy to copy.”
• Many colleges and universities are making special events, guest speakers, interviews, and conferences available as podcasts for students to download.
• And with programs like the master’s of social work joint program with Millersville University, Shippensburg has joined the distance learning loop. “We now have three fully equipped video conference facilities for distance classes,” said Dennis Mathes, assistant vice president of technology.
• Shippensburg University is very much aware of technology and is working to maintain a comprehensive program of acquiring and using it to the university’s best advantage. A key component is the University Technology Council with representatives from administration, faculty, and students. Its purpose is to assist in the planning, coordinating, and monitoring of purchasing and usage, and recommend policies and procedures related to the acquisition and effective use of technology.
• According to Mathes, the council reflects the university’s commitment to technology with steady and constant improvement to the delivery and infrastructure.
• In light of just how quickly technology is pervading society at all levels, the council created a subcommittee on emerging technology. More of a think tank than a working committee, the group takes information on advances and new developments, finds out as much as possible, and then views that knowledge through a Shippensburg lens. With broad representation of university constituents, they ask: How will this change SU? What choices does SU have if a particular development succeeds? How can this help position SU in meeting its goals and objectives concerned with educating our students?
• According to Ryland, committee co-chair, “We need to look ahead, to envision how technology will change Shippensburg University so we can help identify what kinds of choices the university will have and that they will be wise choices.”
• And where does the Student Technology Fee fit in? According to Mathes, the fee enhances the already established university commitment to technology – nothing from the fee goes toward supporting the infrastructure. Proposals to use the techology fee fund are judged solely on the direct benefit to students.

Recent uses of the technology fee include the acquisition of two digital microscopes for the biology department that are getting daily use and a 3-D scanner for the computer science department allowing for enabling rapid prototyping of 3-D objects.

No matter how much technology is available, however, the burden still remains on the classroom instructor to teach the material in a compelling way.

“You shouldn’t use it just because it’s there,” Campbell warned. “If it doesn’t fit your lesson, it can take the effect of teaching away. There’s always the danger of overuse and misuse.”

Tom Coccagna ’77-’92M is a guidance counselor and high school English teacher at Cumberland Valley Christian School in Chambersburg.