The Future of Educational Technology at Illinois

1
The Future of Educational Technology at Illinois

• Lanny Arvan
  Assistant Chief Information Officer for
  Educational Technologies

Campus Information Technologies and Educational
ServicesUniversity of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign
2
Talk Overview

• Where are we now?
• What are the drivers for change?
• A normative guess as to where we might be
  headed

3
External Benchmarks

• Boyer Commission Report
• National Survey of Student Engagement
• Student Pragmatism vs Faculty Theory
• Pew Internet

4
Seat Time Model

• 15 Credit Hours is the norm
• 2 hours out of class for each in class hour???
• Freshmen dont work (for ) much
• Juniors work 8-9 hours per week

5
Does Teaching Count?

• Publish or Perish
• Faculty Idealistic Coming In
• Cynical After Promotion Review
• Teaching with Technology Takes More Time

6
Ed Tech A Coordination Game?
2
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7
The Market for Students

• Within the Traditional Tier
  - Population Growth
• - Stasis in supply
• Increasing Exclusivity?
• Are Moderate Income Students from within the
  State Captured?

8
The Market for Students 2

• Nontraditional Students
• Is Adult Continuing Education a Growth Area for
  the University?

9
Interesting Technologies to Watch

• Wireless, Tablets
• Repositories, ePortfolios
• Point-to-Point Collaboration
• Graphical Content Creation
• Learning Management Systems

10
Pedagogic Issues

• A Bad But Provocative Book Deep Learning for
  a Digital Age Technologys Untapped Potential to
  Enrich Higher Education by Van Weigel
• Bricks and Clicks (too cutesy) vs Totally Online

11
A Better Book

• The Social Life of Information by John Seely
  Brown and Paul Duguid
• While there is innovation in the technology
  itself.
• .Dont underestimate the creativity in adapting
  the technology for productive use

12
Pedagogy 2 Follow Dewey?

• Hands-on meaningful projects versus abstract
  theory
• Learning within courses versus Learning through
  external group activities

13
Employer Expectations of Grads

• Problem Solving Skills
• Communication Skills
• Ability to Work in Groups
• Appreciative of Value in Diversity

14
Progressive Drivers of Change

• Student and Faculty Curiosity
• Central Administration Vision (MITs OCW, OKI)
  but top down shouldnt
  be only driver
• The next Killer App
• Changes in Our Culture

15
Defensive Drivers of Change

• Declining Quality of Applicants This
  isnt happening now
• Shrinking Budgets
  This is
• Interference from BOT/State
• Peer Institutions are Doing It

16
The Future

• Students as Collaborators in Teaching
• Students as Creators of Software and Course
  Content
• Students as Equal Contributors in the Campus
  Community

17
The Role of Ed Tech

• Virtual Interactions
• Virtual Creations
• Virtual Archives
• Repurposing of Content and Method
• Technology as Umpire rather than as Superstar

18
Changes in Curriculum

• Movement toward studio work
• Projects have to be useful (not work that is
  thrown away)
• Movement toward writing intensive courses
• Integration of theory courses

19
Changes in Work done in Clubs and Campus
Organizations

• Movement toward serving communities broader than
  students
• Movement toward making this required
  A Peace Corps for
  the Campus

20
Role of Graduate TAs

• After fear of displacement is overcome
• Tiered approach
• Teaching as reward rather than burden
• Mentor and collaborate with undergraduate
  creators as well as with faculty supervisors

21
Barriers to Getting There

• Business Model
• When is student work For course
  credit? For income?
  Done out of the goodness of
  their hearts?

22
Barriers to Getting There 2

• Fear of Experimentation
• Moving ahead programmatically before vision is
  shared widely

23
A Sensible Vision

• Oxymoron?
• Or What We Desperately Need to Make Progress?

24
All Suggestions Appreciated

• Lanny Arvan
  l-arvan_at_uiuc.edu