Technology in Education High Education
Colleges
and universities have generally been quick to adopt new technologies, often
even before their educational value has been proven. Throughout its history,
higher education has experimented with technological advances as diverse as the
blackboard and the personal computer. Some technologies have become permanent
parts of the higher education enterprise. Others, such as the slide rule and
the 16-millimeter movie projector, have been replaced as more sophisticated or
more cost-effective technologies have emerged to take their place.
At
the dawn of the twenty-first century, new and rapidly improving technologies
are in the process of transforming higher education. Each year since 1994, the
Campus Computing Survey has shown increased use in college classrooms of
technology-dependent resources such as e-mail, the Internet, course web pages,
and computer simulations. Technology has the potential to revolutionize the
traditional teaching and learning process. It can eliminate the barriers to
education imposed by space and time and dramatically expand access to lifelong
learning. Students no longer have to meet in the same place at the same time to
learn together from an instructor. Fundamentally, modern technologies have the
ability to change the conception of a higher education institution. No longer
is a higher education institution necessarily a physical place with classrooms
and residence halls where students come to pursue an advanced education.
Forces Promoting and
Inhibiting Technology Use
In
spite of technology's promise, its integration throughout higher education has
not been rapid or painless. Many barriers to technology-based innovations exist
within colleges and universities. Academic traditions, such as the
faculty-centered lecture, make many professors reluctant to adopt alternative
instructional strategies using the computer or telecommunication devices. The
cost of many technological applications also prohibits their easy adoption at
many resource-limited institutions. Before technology became such a central
part of institutional operations, many colleges paid for new or improved
technologies from funds left over at the end of their annual budget cycle. Now
that technology has become an essential and recurring investment, most schools
must locate additional funds to meet their increasing needs for technology
resources.
Traditionally,
professors have used much of their class time with students to disseminate
information through lectures and follow-up discussion. This was especially the
case in introductory-level courses, where students lack a foundation in the
basic concepts and principles of a field. In an era of advanced technology,
this approach to instruction seems archaic and inefficient. Computers,
especially web-based resources, can disseminate basic information more
efficiently and more cost effectively than human beings can.
Many
factors will contribute to the changes that will occur as the higher education
system moves into the future. There is no doubt that technology will be one of
the driving forces contributing to the educational transformation that is
already well underway.
