About the Office of the Dean
Office of Information Technology
2000-2010 Strategic Plan
Appendix F: Position Paper on Technology
Information technology (IT) can support and add value to many elements of the College of Education's (COE) strategic plan. However, simply increasing the use of IT is not itself a goal. Rather, IT should be applied to address real problems and accomplish the goals and objectives enumerated in the plan. Information Technology has implications for actions across all five main goals of the college's plan. A rationale for incorporating IT and a brief elaboration of a few possible examples of its integration into action plans are presented in this Appendix to the Strategic Plan.
Information technology is pervasive in all aspects of academic, political and social life in the U.S., and increasingly around the world. It is having a profound impact on how knowledge is created, stored, retrieved, distributed, and used in virtually all disciplines. Every discipline from the fine arts to mathematics is being fundamentally altered by IT. Increasingly, access to, and skill in using, information technology is the hallmark of a competent professional. However, no professional can be considered well prepared if they are simply "computer literate." They also must be competent in many specific skills related to their unique areas of expertise. Teachers, administrators, support personnel, and students at all levels of education must know how to integrate a wide-range of information technologies into their daily professional activities. In particular, the role of students is changing from passive recipients of knowledge to active participants in its generation and distribution. In the near future, joint learning and exploration by students and teachers will be much more common than it is today.
The COE has a particularly important stake in enhancing the IT competence of its students, faculty, staff, and administrators so that it can achieve its goals. Currently the IT preparation of many graduates is uneven and inconsistent and does not prepare them to become leaders and problem solvers. Leadership in the next decade will be defined not so much by formal position as by the ability to rapidly locate, evaluate, and act upon information. Often labeled "information literacy," this competence blends knowledge and skill from a variety of areas and provides the foundation for becoming an expert. Leadership in effect will be based on one's ability to demonstrate impact. This form of leadership should be modeled by faculty and staff, and students should have opportunities to acquire and practice it during their study in the college.
If the college is to retain its premier reputation, faculty in virtually every discipline need to explore how IT is, can, and will affect all aspects of their respective areas. Further, this knowledge needs to be shared with constituents at all levels. Much collaborative research and development will need to be done "in-situ" in schools and other settings, both to increase its applicability and to address real problems. Information technology can greatly assist these research efforts by enabling new practice, facilitating team communication, automating data collection and analysis, and speeding dissemination of results. In addition to all departments exploring new IT opportunities, some have a unique potential to engage in research and development that is truly ground breaking. For example, emerging interactive and adaptive multimedia, virtual 3-D environments, and Internet2, present unique opportunities to establish the college as being in the forefront of the IT revolution. Selected individuals within and across departments should be encouraged to form teams to explore these technologies. The college's failure to grasp these opportunities will diminish its future reputation and yield these important areas to our competitors. Risk capital and risk taking are clearly required.
Virtual group structures made possible by IT will flourish as the speed, bandwidth, and reliability of communication channels increase. For example, a prospective student teacher might virtually "visit," observe, and even interact with supervising teacher and students before actually being in the building. During student teaching they might be observed by and hold conferences with a college supervisor and perhaps even fellow student teachers. And after the student teaching experience they might continue to work with a group of students from that school on a project begun earlier in the school. Similar experiences could be arranged for students in other departments as the boundaries between formal education and practice begin to blur in all fields. Continuing contact with and mentoring of graduates of college programs can also be enhanced as IT becomes ubiquitous in the college and at the workplace. While no substitute for direct personal contact with individuals from other cultures, IT can help prepare individuals for those experiences and facilitate continued interaction as those contacts expand. International activities of the college will be similarly enhanced by the ready availability of IT
Limited IT infrastructure and funds for continuous upgrading hamper our ability to engage in cutting-edge research, learn and demonstrate new instruction practices that take advantage of advanced technology, and engage with our respective constituencies. Outreach programs and distance learning opportunities are similarly limited by current infrastructure and the lack of support for faculty desiring to employ IT in these areas.
Professional development opportunities for faculty and staff are limited. Rapid advances in IT capabilities outstrip current efforts and opportunities to keep up to date. In an earlier era, self-learning and informal experiences may have been sufficient, but today are not. Planned programs and strategically provided incentives are needed both to encourage faculty to engage in professional development and more importantly to experiment with new approaches. Small incremental increases will not result in the college becoming a leader in IT because the competition will move ahead even more rapidly over the next few years. The IT benchmark for highly ranked colleges of education is not just moving ahead, it is doing so at an ever increasing rate. Only well thought out initiatives will close the current gap and permit overtaking the leaders.
In summary, as the COE positions itself to continue to play a major role in teaching, research, and outreach, IT planning becomes essential to achieving its goals. Integration of IT across all departments and offices of the college is both a precondition and a continuing requirement of virtually all action plans. College, school, and department-wide professional development, modification of curriculum, identifying new teaching, learning, research and outreach opportunities, and upgrading of infrastructure are all essential to become the "Next Great College of Education" as identified in the Millennium Commission Report and outlined in the college's strategic plan.
Goal #1 Appendix A |
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