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Emerging technologies change the face of teaching

Monday, April 20, 2009


Nearly 40 faculty and instructional support staff gathered in February at a monthly meeting of Community of Educational Technology Support (ComETS) members to explore what emerging technologies might be deployed on the UW-Madison campus to improve instruction to students.  Six campus presenters showcased their research, highlighting how some of today’s information technologies have the potential to both positively and negatively impact teaching and learning.

Second Life

A user flies over Bascom hall in Second LifeCatherine Stephens, Instructional Technology Services Coordinator with the School of Education, provided an overview of the UW-Madison island project in Second Life, a three-dimensional virtual world where online users can create content and communicate with other avatars (virtual personas) using voice and text chat. “This is a collaborative venture.  Our support group includes faculty and staff from several schools, colleges, and IT departments.  The project came about as a response to the growing interest in teaching with virtual worlds at UW-Madison. ” she said.

Four School of Education classes use Second Life as part of their coursework.   Second Life is also used in DoIT’s Engage Simulations and Games awards and is emerging as a platform for several campus groups.  Stephens spoke about plans to gather anecdotal data from faculty teaching in Second Life to help justify the project going forward.  

screenshot of agree/disagree buttonsClick-Through Agreements

Timmo Dugdale, a senior information processing consultant with DoIT, reviewed the Engage Award Program’s efforts to evaluate the risks and rewards associated with using non-campus, third party technologies such as Google Docs for award recipients. These applications are often attractive because they are free and meet a defined need. However, their click-if-you-agree contracts frequently contain language that users should find alarming. Dugdale explained that companies like YouTube, Blogger and Google Docs have user agreements that may give them perpetual rights to alter, reproduce or distribute users’ content. “Most people don’t read the click-through agreements. Even if they do, they don’t understand them,” said Dugdale.

Though a click-through agreement is considered a contract, instructors don’t have the signatory authority to bind the University to a contract. Should legal issues arise, these individuals may put themselves as risk--not necessarily the University.  Students are not immune to the consequences of these agreements, either. According to an annual campus computing survey, 56 percent of UW-Madison students reported using Google applications (e.g., Gmail, Writely, Spreadsheets) in spring 2008, up from 41 percent in 2007. The content students post there may reside online for decades, even if they remove the original source material.

Douglas Worsham, College of Letters and Science; Ron Kraemer, CIO and Vice Provost for Information Technology; Alan Wolf, DoIT and Center for Biology Education; and Jeffrey Bohrer, DoIT, also presented information about other emerging trends in instructional technologies.  

ComETS members identified student privacy, rights to intellectual property, technical support, legal liability, impact on learning, and cost as key factors for instructors to consider as they choose which technologies will best support their teaching objectives.

Check the ComETS Emerging Trends wiki at cometset.pbwiki.com for more information about the program and links to handouts.