EDUCAUSE Review Articles and IT Integration

Transformational faculty-development efforts must involve systematic, goal-directed, sustained activities that are integral to the daily work of academic community members.

As faculty members confront the expanding impact that technology is having on their scholarship, research, teaching, and students, IT organizations must assess their role in shaping, implementing, and supporting the assimilation of IT into the teaching and learning process.

“Only when our students see our own learning blossoming within a computer romance will they listen to us when we tell them to use these tools more wisely themselves.”

With directed effort, some ingenuity, and a future-focused vision, colleges and universities should be able to identify and leverage existing technologies with which to build aspects of "future" campus learning spaces—today.

When asking the question, "does technology make a difference"? The authors state the answer depends on how the question is asked.

The author discusses what his campus has done to prepare for the net gen learner.

Two graduate students share their perspectives, gained from their experiences on both sides of the lectern, about how various technologies can be used successfully in classroom settings to improve learning through connectivity.

Four students—representing Baby Boomers, Generation-Xers, and Millennials—discuss the use of technology in teaching and learning, the role of professors and the adoption of technology by professors, the importance of technology for social networking, and the need for more university-provided technology services.

Diana G. Oblinger and Brian L. Hawkins emphasize now is the time for institutions to ensure technology has been used effectively to improve quality, access and flexibility in the delivery of the learning environment.

Traveling 15,000 miles during the course of nine months, the author visited twenty-eight liberal arts colleges and universities to discuss their IT practices in relation to the academic program, the campus-wide infrastructure, use of the Web, and overall institutional efficiency.