An Urgent Need for New Vision and Strategy for Use of New Technologies in Education
© M. Kostic, Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Northern Illinois University
kostic@niu.edu; Web: www.kostic.niu.edu or http://www.ceet.niu.edu/faculty/kostic * [BACK to Publications/Presentations] *
NOTE: This article is originally written in 1998 with occasional later modifications, so some new technology data may be outdated.
Changes Are Inevitable: "To Be or Not to Be"Need for New Vision and StrategyThe new technologies are ahead of us: The question is not "Should we use them," but "How"?My experience: The first step comes before walking and runningSpecific Proposal [se also Web Goals]Conclusion: We cannot afford to wait
References
APPENDIX: Some interesting comments about New Technology in Education
Changes Are Inevitable: "To Be or Not to Be"
The new networking and interactive computational simulation and multimedia technologies (known as Internet or Information Technology or IT) remove space, time, and cultural boundaries, thus bringing in the real global competition which in turn promotes efficiency and quality. (Un)Fortunately, at the same time, those who do not keep up with the new developments will suffer in improving efficiency and quality, will not be competitive and ultimately may not survive. A majority of future jobs will require technological competency. New students and current employees will have to learn and relearn new technological skills in order to succeed at work and enjoy life fuller. Furthermore, they will want to learn these skills at those institutions that provide a quality learning environment enhanced with diverse technological developments, including but not limited to quality multimedia classroom presentation, networking with other learning resources, and convenient synchronous and asynchronous communications with their peers and experts alike. They will expect their teachers to be leading professionals in their fields and comfortable in using new technologies in the classroom and laboratory.
The IT and other new technologies, do not and can not replace good traditional values and methods, like reasoning and cognitive thinking, but do have a tremendous potential to enhance them, by facilitating learning by doing and what-if analysis and simulation, as opposed to talking about doing: “I hear…and I forget! I see…and I remember! BUT, I do…and I understand!" That's where the IT has a decisive competitive edge over classical methods. Since we are in the beginning of the information revolution, it is hard to comprehend that new technologies and interactive/computational simulations will make another revolution in the 21st century in many areas, the way steam power or electricity made industrial revolution in previous centuries. The IT allow us to do what we thought will never be possible, but also force us to do what we never wanted to do! The latter is why IT is often unduly blamed like many other new tools and inventions before. It is wrong to blame technology for the lack of our ingenuity how to effectively use it.
Need for New Vision and Strategy
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Educational institutions cannot avoid global changes and challenges, which are occurring in every-day life, industry and services mainly due to the advent of new technologies. The changes and challenges are enormous and are happening fast. The changes are fundamental and require radical shift in thinking, use of technology, and culture in general. The classical strategic plans have little value in today's fast-changing world. So, there is a need for new vision and strategy, but they cannot be simply transferred from one institution to another, due to vast diversity of technology, the users and their objectives. Strategic planning has to be replaced with "strategic thinking process" to accommodate with continuously changing needs and technology. It is easier, but misleading, to focus on short-term goals (reducing cost and staff). Strategic thinking must confront and resolve both the short-term and long-term issues. The executive strategic vision is very important to drive the needed restructuring activities of the whole organization. It is extremely urgent and particularly important that the university administration focuses on creating and communicating a broad shared vision in order to generate motivation and commitment of all participants. We must be flexible and have multiple contingency plans to choose from, depending on external factors that are changing much faster with the advent of new technology. Impact of new technologies along with economic and competitive pressure and customers' expectations, are forcing universities to restructure themselves. The new technological developments are the prime source of competitive advantage and university administration must make it a high priority to promote and make them widely available. Finally, the strategic vision and plans must be results-oriented. Institutional culture and structure should be developed so that all employees will contribute to planning and immediate action and implementation. It is critical that classical administration and management of (a) planning and budgeting, (b) organizing and staffing, and (c) controlling and problem solving, be enhanced with creative leadership of (a) setting directions, (b) recruiting volunteers, and (c) inspiring and motivating, respectively.
The new technologies are ahead of us: The question is not "Should we use them," but "How"?
The new technological developments are already available and powerful, becoming user friendlier and less expensive. The PC hardware and software are so advanced due to rapid development of new technologies, mass production, and fierce competition. For example, one could hardly find a more advanced and powerful tool, for any price, than today's Personal Computer (PC). For about $2000 today, one may buy a 2 GHz Pentium 4 multimedia PC with 1 GB RAM memory and 120 GB hard drive. Many of the most advanced devices, costing tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars, do not have such a powerful processing speed nor storage capacity. Good performance scanners and motion-video capture boards are below $200. Re-writeable CD and recordable DVD drives are about $100 and $500 respectively. One may buy almost any software for an educational or "street" price of around $50-100. We may not like Microsoft's (MS) monopoly, but its latest version of Office (Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, as well as Draw, Image, Chart, Equation and other utilities) and FrontPage (with Web Explorer, Web Page and Image Editors) are so sophisticated that most users will never need most of the available features. The competitors' products are equally good. If it weren't for the MS Encarta and other encyclopedias, The Britannica on DVD (which happens to have more materials, much better and useful than its printed volumes) with multimedia, search and interactive application engines, would not be about $50 (even sold in Wal-Mart and other discount stores). Professional software are equally sophisticated and inexpensive. For example, the MathCAD, general purpose math software, has so many numerical and symbolical features that we may forget about the procedures for evaluating and solving equations and instead concentrate on developing and optimizing conditions/correlations/equations (i.e. "setting-up" problems) which the software will solve for us. Everything is qualitatively different from what we used to know in the recent past. Furthermore, many of existing computational machines (PCs, known as micro-, but also mini- and macro/super -computers, or stations, servers, etc.) are connected together in different networks, topped by Internet. That means that most of the people have easy, fast and convenient access to synchronous and asynchronous communications and each other's resources, which are growing fast in quantity but also in quality and more efficient and diverse search "engines." The conclusion should be self-evident.
My experience: The first step comes before walking and running
I have been actively learning and using (also "living with and fighting") new technologies in last number of years. I developed thousands of files within my Web site www.kostic.niu.edu as motivational and learning aids for our students and others. After attending past Illinois Faculty Summer Institute at UIUC and ASEE's National Engineering Education Conference, I realized then that many are lagging behind the leading institutions in this area. That motivated me to be increasingly involved with versatile potentials of new technologies in the classroom and laboratory. Actually, I considered this as the most important task for my institution and my career, so that I completely and enthusiastically have devoted most of my energy and time in implementing new technologies for teaching and learning. I did most of the work myself with a little help from supporting staff, which in turn exposed me to many facets of the new technologies. It was not easy and it took a lot of time, but it was satisfying to see the developed learning aids working in the classroom and laboratory. Of course, the institutions now has a number of different resources to support faculty in using new technologies, but many of these services need to be improved for new needs. Also, the faculties need to keep up with new developments in order to be able to utilize not only technology itself, but also available institutional supports. It is a misconception that digitizing old learning aids will be all that is needed. It is very important to realize that new technology opens up many new opportunities and possibilities, but also new challanges. Therefore, it is essential to realize that new learning aids must be created specifically for the new technology. That is a reason I have spent a lot of time learning visualization and multimedia art, like graphics (vector and bitmap), animation (interactive computing), and audio and video software applications. Visualization with interactivity (dynamics) and multimedia are the new technology features that utilize all natural senses to enhance the overall learning environment.
Since the new vision and strategy need to be result/action oriented and implemented immediately, the university needs to restructure and refocus its resources accordingly. A "vice-provost for new technologies" position should be established. That position should be in charge of unifying all institutional activities related to implementation of all new technologies for teaching and learning, such as Faculty Development Office, Academic Computing services, Photo/Art/Media Services, Division of Continuing Education, and others. Similarly, an associate dean for new technologies position may be established in selected colleges. For example, in CEET the Computing Services, External Programming, Audio-Visual and Distance Learning Services, may be unified together to focus and provide needed resources for development and application of new technologies for teaching and learning as well as for research.
Establishing needed leadership positions and restructuring of the available services will establish our priorities and provide vision, strategy and facilities to motivate and assist faculty in enhancing their activities. Then, new structures should be developed and implemented. There should not be any dictated or mandatory activities; that would be inappropriate, since there is no "the best way"; and counterproductive, since the faculty should be motivated and facilitated to creatively develop diverse teaching and learning aids as they see it fit for their disciplines and audiences. The new vision should help create new culture, not establish new procedures. The latter should be left to be done by faculty in a challenging and competitive environment with appropriate institutional support and incentives. The new vision and results-oriented strategy should provide and promote:
Conclusion: We cannot afford to wait
Learning by doing/practicing is natural and has many advantages over classical studying which is usually boring for students. Let us reiterate again the familiar phrase: "I hear ... and I forget, I see ... and I remember, BUT I do ... and I understand!" New technologies offer effective opportunities for "doing," such as interactive multimedia simulation, what-if-analysis, virtual and real experimentation, etc. That's where the new technology has a competitive edge over classical methods. Due to intense developments for global use the new technology is becoming user friendlier and less expensive. Those who take the lead will succeed, others will stay behind and fail. The need is not for tomorrow, but for yesterday, so we have to act today. What is needed is a new vision and strategy, which should result in creation of new institutional culture and plans, which in turn should be under perpetual development and implementation by all involved. The leaders should lead by example and by promoting good examples. The inherent feature of the Internet, that its content has no time or geographical boundaries, makes it directly available at any place for "Distance Learning," and self-learning aids at any time and for any learner. Some important things to remember:
I am convinced that a knowledgeable, enthusiastic and mission-oriented individuals in a responsible leadership positions with a clear vision and know-how for implementing new technologies in education will make the difference and could contribute significantly for the betterment (and yes survival!) of an educational institution of the highest learning.
Some interesting comments about New Technology in Education:
Internet and NewTech allows us to do what we thought will never be possible, but also force us to do what we never wanted to do!
Will New Technology replace and endanger human?: No, it never did! Should we use New Technology?: Of course, but wisely! Question is not "Whether Or Not?," but How...! If one does not want to change…one has to adjust to the changes!
New Technology can not and is not to replace the traditional values and methods, but to enhance and complement them.
I hear ... and I forget. I see ... and I remember.
BUT, I do ... and I
understand!
…NewTech offers effective opportunities for "doing," like
interactive multimedia simulation, what-if-analysis, real experimentation, etc.
NewTech - New Opportunities! New Learning Environment - New Culture! Internet - Information Revolution!
Traditional Educator - An Expert in His/Her Field: …Teaching, Research, Services!
The 21st Century Educator - A Knowledgeable Leader, Coach and Facilitator:…Motivation, Recruitment, Retention, Outreach!
Substance is much more important than form: what you post on Web is more important than form itself. Content is more important than colors.
Quantity has no (little) value with NewTech since it produces quantity easily and fast (Cut/Copy-and-Paste or Ctrl_C/Ctrl_V). Thus, substance and quality are even more important with new technology than ever. Creativity and QUALITY… is all that matters.
It should be clearly stated that... use of new-technology should not be to promote the new-technology per se but rather to use it to be more effective in achieving the objectives.
Be aware of complexity, but make it simple!