05-03-28 Instructional Technology

Dear Friend:

 E-mail. Video Conferencing. The Internet.  Laptops.  Word Processing.  Blogs.  Chat Rooms.  Personal Digital Assistants.  Wi Fi Wireless.  Bluetooth.  Wikis.

 Few of us remain untouched by changes brought about by these contemporary features of our technological world.  Universities have been similarly affected.  Some are mundane changes – word processors craft research papers, faculty use overheads and PowerPoint presentations, and students contact faculty with emails more frequently than visits to faculty offices. 

 Moving beyond these routine uses of technology to enhance student learning and increase teaching effectiveness poses the real challenge for universities in the 21^st century.  I am pleased to tell you that several faculty and staff members in the College of Liberal Arts have responded well to this challenge.  Let me share with you a few illustrations of genuine faculty creativity to enhance teaching and learning in the College.

• Philosophy Professor Chris Menzel in conjunction with Colin Allen created the Logic Machine (http://logic.tamu.edu) to help students learn how to reason and think critically using logic systems.  The Logic Machine is a web-based application that provides both interactive homework and a logic proof checker (complete with tips and hints).  Menzel and Allen are using the extensive student feedback as they work through the problems to revise their course curriculum.  
• In psychology, graduate students and faculty are using “Calibrated Peer Review” (http://cpr.tamu.edu/) to ensure that students in large-section courses are learning to write and think critically in classes such as Introduction to Psychology, Social Psychology, and other courses.  Faculty make on-line writing assignments and through a series of questions and prompts guide students to review their writing as well as the writing of other students in the class. 
• Technology is also helping students hone their speaking skills.  Students in English Professor Dennis Berthold’s Literature of the Sea course use a web-based quizzing system to demonstrate their understanding of reading assignments before they come to class. Berthold then leads his classes in discussion and debate instead of a lecture.  At the end of the semester students merge what they’ve learned by producing and delivering a multimedia presentation over a topic from the course.

In the Department of Hispanic Studies and the Department of Communication, technology is extending classrooms and learning experiences beyond the College Station campus. 

• Students and instructors from four Texas A&M campuses (College Station, Corpus Christi, Laredo, and Kingsville) are using the Trans-Texas Video Network (TTVN) and Internet2 to deliver courses in the new doctoral program in Hispanic Studies (http://hisp.tamu.edu).  By involving students and faculty from multiple campuses, Hispanic Studies graduate students have the opportunity to concentrate their studies in specialties to which they would not normally have access without transferring to a university other than their own.
•  
• In Patrick Burkart’s Political Economy of Telecommunication course and Ian Weber’s Global Media course, students use blogs, web-based systems that allow students to publish their opinions and reasoning on the Internet.  Burkart and Weber, professors in the telecommunication media studies program, guide their students through the process of thinking, writing, and publishing their ideas and then dealing with feedback from any Internet user who chooses to comment on the students’ work.  Blogs are an important Internet communication trend students need to understand.  The December 2004 issue of Fortune magazine notes that popular bloggers can publish their opinions about products and services very quickly and generate either a lot of enthusiasm or a lot of negative press in a matter of days.

Finally, the College trains faculty who want to use instructional technology in teaching through a summer program, now in its third year.  Past participants include Menzel and Berthold as well as Amy Earhart, an English instructor who created the Nineteenth Century Concord website, which allows her to edit and publish engaging multimedia material written by students and faculty (http://www-english.tamu.edu/concord). 

In the next several years increasing numbers of faculty will use technology to extend the learning experiences of A&M students.  Faculty have already changed the way they present material, the venues for discussions, and the manner by which students receive feedback on their work.  Classrooms have changed to include Internet links and video capabilities, and the library increasingly offers digital references and research tools.  The College will continue to encourage the use of technology to enhance teaching and learning.  I invite you to visit the web sites mentioned in this letter to gauge the changes now taking place for the next generation of Aggie graduates.

Sincerely,

Charles A. Johnson

Dean