August 8, 2011

Students speak about professors’ technology skills

Posted by Dr. Laura Guertin

From The Chronicle of Higher Education,Video Forum: Students Assess Their Professors’ Technology Skills

This was an interesting conversation, on many levels. First, this interview with four college students was conducted through Google+ and recorded with a screen capture program. I could see this being used for office hours and review sessions. But what I really like (something that we don’t do enough in higher education) are the direct questions asked of the students as to how effective faculty are in using technology in the classroom. Yes, I think even faculty will admit that PowerPoint is not necessarily the best way to go – and part of the solution needs to be better training and professional development opportunities for faculty to learn about new approaches with new technologies. And I agree with the first commenter at the end of the article – students should not expect faculty to put their PowerPoint presentations online (that’s not the solution, either).

It would be interesting to see this conversation take place every six months or so, as technology and classroom integration of new technology changes.  How much longer will we (faculty) be giving drive-by PowerPoint presentations?