One of the things that has taken getting used to for me as I teach my course this semester is the increased use of Technology as teaching tools. Whether it is an ELMO document camera (sometimes I think the little red guy might be more useful), Power Point, Blackboard, or clickers (I am still trying to figure these out), technology is playing an increasing role in today’s college classroom. This is a significant departure from what I knew as an undergraduate student at Illinois College. To my recollection, only four of my classes ever used some type of technology beyond a VHS or DVD player. One was chemistry, where we used some Power Point, while in my macroeconomics class we used the new smart classroom technology (this was new stuff in ’03) to draw graphs. The most logical class for using technology was my computer science class on visual basic, where we simply used the projector to view the program we were discussing, while my statistics class used the projector so we could follow the instructor on Excel, while we worked on it in the computer lab the class was held in. All my classes in the arts and humanities were traditional with no use of technology, just the professor lecturing and the board for key terms.

I know that my experience is similar to most faculty in our department, as many of us are at varying stages of accepting and incorporating such tools into our teaching. While many departments in the academy are embracing new technology, history is behind the curve. I believe a lot of this has to do with most of us learning in the traditional lecture style with little to no reliance on such tools. The result is that we are not used to using such technology and are hesitant to try it because of unfamiliarity. I have heard great arguments for using technology, as well as frustrations over it, but I will at least give technology a try. Though it involves a bit more work on my part, I do hope that using technological tools helps my students get a better experience from my course and enhances the accessibility of my lectures. In closing, I would love to hear about your experiences with technology and teaching, the good and bad, to gain a better understanding of how such tools are used in today’s classroom, so please comment and share.