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Weighing In
It IS about Technology: Integrating Higher Ed into Knowledge Culture
8/6/2008
For more than twenty years, we educational technologists have talked about "integrating information technology into higher education." We have claimed, "It's not about the technology, it's about teaching and learning." And, we have assured faculty members, "They [the machines] are just tools." In all cases, the implication was that education would stay the same and information technology would benignly slip in and cause no ruckus at all.This rhetoric no longer applies, if it ever did, and does a disservice to us as we work through the intricacies of this age.
To Be Human is to be a Technology User
We information technologists need to say now, after all, of course, of course, it is about the technology. How can any human endeavor not be about the technology? Technology -- from clothing to housing to farming tools -- is inseparable from humans. We have adapted as much to the technology as we have adapted the technology to us.
Higher education, in every facet of its business, has in fact evolved to take advantage of information technology, from managing parking gates, to the network that carries the business of the institution, to financial and ERP systems that manage the business operation, and to the library and inventory control and so on across the enterprise.
But at the very core of the enterprise, where the faculty meet students, we have a bit of a problem. Because at that interface, the book-drenched core beliefs about authority and knowledge and value meet the products of a culture -- our youth -- that has embraced an emerging dispersed authority- and knowledge-building marketplace. It is a 24/7 social marketplace of ideas.
It is at this interface, or interstices, that core cultural assumptions are being bent so the fault lines are altering. It is this cultural transmogrification, this social metamorphosis, that Web 2.0 refers to. Web 2.0 is not really a technological phenomenon but a cultural phenomenon. Web 2.0 occurred when both we and the technologies started acting socially.
Seen as a cultural and social moment, a moment of ruptured equilibrium, Web 2.0 takes on new meaning in the learning interface between teacher and learner. Part of that meaning is the issue of what is so different in a Web 2.0 world that the current higher education structure becomes incompatible?
One example to consider, and this may be just the tip of the iceberg, is the assumption that learners learn best in 15-week semesters or 10-week terms or whatever arbitrary segment of time is offered at different institutions. Behind this structure is the assumption that learning should be segmented at all. Why did we come to that conclusion? Why do we think it is best for first- and second-year students to start-and-stop with their learning every few months? A better model might be, and might have always been, for a learner's work to be structured around the time necessary to complete a learning project and not based on an arbitrary time limit.
Recommended Reading
- Georgia Tech Helps Develop Web-based Tool To Improve Blood Supply
The Georgia Tech College of Computing, working in partnership with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has developed a Web-based tool for tracking blood safety. The program is expected to help developing countries improve the adequacy and safety of their national blood supplies through better monitoring and evaluation.
- Mississippi State Implements Reflex Virtual Management Center
Mississippi State University has implemented Reflex VMC (Virtual Management Center) from Reflex Systems. The application allows IT administrators to monitor a virtual infrastructure and enforce business and IT policies.
- Stanford Law School Launches IP Litigation Clearinghouse
The Law, Science & Technology Program at Stanford Law School has launched the Intellectual Property Litigation Clearinghouse (IPLC), an online database that offers comprehensive information about intellectual property (IP) disputes within the United States.
- Texas A&M Health Science Center Adopts Banner Administrative Management
The Texas A&M Health Science Center has selected the Banner Unified Digital Campus (UDC) from Sungard Higher Education to help unify its geographically-dispersed community and to enhance and expand services and communications to its growing student enrollment.
- NCCC: Data Cleansing Key To Managing Growth
Community colleges are in a good spot in some ways during the economic downturn, as tight family budgets drive up the appeal of the community college option. But along with the rest of higher education, most community colleges also face shrinking IT budgets and tighter resources. That makes it that much harder to handle the growing enrollment numbers that some community colleges are seeing.
- Finjan: Layoffs Could Drive IT People To Become Cyber-Criminals
Security vendor Finjan predicts that the current economic downturn could herald a sharp rise in cybercrime during 2009--driven by the rise in the number of IT people being laid off. According to a report from the company's Malicious Code Research Center (MCRC), more unemployed IT personnel will be tempted to seek "new and easy income by purchasing and using crimeware toolkits that are sold by professional hackers."
