Technology and Changes in Higher Education

mauri collins, MA

Continuing and Distance Education

The Pennsylvania State University

Changes in:

Technology

Teachers

Students

Curriculum

Institutions

What is powering these changes?

Universities facing international competition for students
and rising internal costs/declining budgets

Non-traditional students demanding workplace learning

Innovative faculty

Technology saturation in society raising expectations

Productions values in TV, video games

Commercial internet access providers

Windows '95

WWW - the business card of the 90s

Changing Technology

Bring it into the classroom

• Presentation software/hardware
• TV, video, videodisk, cdrom
• Audio/video conferencing
• The Internet/WWW
• enhanced lecture/demo/experiments

Extend the classroom walls

home

work

shut-ins/incarcerated

physically challenged persons

Bring the classroom into the University/World community

Open classroom door

Access national and international data sources

Changing Faculty Roles

Innovators/techno-phobes

Video: Performance Artists

Large classes/economies of scale

Losing immediacy/control

Guide on the side not sage on the stage

Facilitating and moderating

Teaching open to inspection

Teaching as part of a course team

Instructional development takes TIME

Credit with P&T committees

Changing Students

not all 18-24 any more

adults need to stay in place

demanding technologically mediated learning experiences

learning for work/application

just-in-time learning

seek active, collaborative learning

being educated by advertising

need information "filters"

Changing Curriculums

Technology first taught about
• then taught how to use
• now learn through
• Access to huge amounts of information
• Technology enables real-world problem solving
• Learning must be transferable
• Constructivist models

Institutions

International competition

Upfront investment in infrastructure

Issues of access for students/faculty

Policy changes re registration, residency

Support for equipment

Life-cycle replacement

Support and training for users

Opening classroom doors

Changes in Higher Education

Fastest change: Technology

Societal change

Student demand

Faculty under pressure

Work-based curriculum

Slowest change: the University