Webliminalblog

"All Humanists will Be Assimilated"

Chronicle Careers: 05/31/2005 - by Thomas H. Benton

Here's an interesting and thoughtful discussion of the benefits of using technology in teaching, specifically to assist teaching writing intensive courses.

Some good quotes from the article:

"In my view, the best online services produced by colleges are motivated, above all, by the honest desire to serve students and provide information (backed up by a good team of full-time Web specialists).

Quirkiness is a good thing, provided it is not accompanied by technological incompetence. Once a functioning infrastructure is created and supported, Web sites are better when their content is produced on a continuing basis by people who actually work in the department, reflect its culture, and regard their work as a legitimate form of faculty service. "

and

"As a human, I am sympathetic. But, if SAGrader means that I'll never have to write "what is your thesis?" in the margin of another undergraduate paper, then sign me up for my cortical implant."

and

"I suppose the resistance of professors to educational technology is at least partly based on a longstanding and not altogether unjustified mistrust of academic administrators. As a group, administrators seem all too eager to find ways to reduce the cost of teaching while spending more and more on marketing, landscaping, sports facilities, support staff, and, of course, new administrators with outrageous salaries. Those new expenditures have been accompanied by a steady flow of money into wave after wave of now-useless technologies that promised to turn every Gopher Prairie Teacher's College into the "Harvard of the lower-upper Midwest."

No doubt, the mistrust of administrators extends to rank-and-file faculty members who get too involved with educational technology. So in addition to the complexities of developing an online course, there is a real possibility that my project could be scuttled by the concerns of other professors, who fear I've gone over to the dark side."

Posted by ernie at May 31, 2005 03:08 PM