A response to the article posted by a friend

Read this first: http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2008/09/2008091201c.htm
It is the article that this posting is about.

I definately agree with the part about the universities not watching out for the hidden costs that used to be part of what was paid for upfront with the contract. The clicker issue described in the article is one example of this. Another example is the time I spent in orientation learning how to grade using WebCT while training to be a TA for the chemistry department. The department now uses WebCT to post all student grades, allowing students to see their grades in progress, which in itself is an admirable thing. I know there are some classes where I would have loved to know my grade at different points throughout the semester. The negative part of using this system is that it can, at times, be unreasonably complicated. To learn how to put grades in the online gradebook, we(the roughly 40 new TAs for the chemistry department) sat in a computer lab for 2 hours while 3 professors taught us all the intricate details of using this system. We all got our hourly rate to attend this training. The grading used to be done in a paper gradebook (and in all actuality, still is, as we are required to keep a backup, non-electronic, version of the grades in case the system breaks) that required little training if any at all. If this is taken and extrapolated for all the departments on campus, you are probably looking at a cost of 10,000-20,000 dollars yearly just to train people on how to use the grading system. On the point presented halfway through the article dealing with the later generations of web users, especially the luddite users of web 4.0, the writer is correct in his predictions, but could be very wrong about the time required for this evolution. Technology has a way of making each jump forward take exponentially less time than the last. Take for example the progression between doing math with fingers and toes to now, when there is talk of developing quantum computers, which use qubits to do lightning fast calculations that now take years even with the fastest supercomputers. It took thousands of years to get to the industrial revolution and the first real mechanical computers. It then took 150 yeas to get to the first digital computers. Now fifty years later, depending on what you want to define as a paradigm shift, we have gone through probably 5-8 evolutionary jumps in computing technology to the point where, if I had the patience, I could be writing this from my Ipod while walking between classes on central campus. The jump from email to chat rooms to facebook to twitter has taken roughly 15 years , give or take a couple on each end. In other words, the jump to web 2.0 (which for the context of this argument, I will describe as facebook, youtube and the like, even though some may argue that it existed even earlier in the form of slashdot and similar services) took 12 years, the jump to web 3.0 (twitter, iReporters on CNN) has taken 2. Many times when I go to check cnn.com in the morning after reading the newspapers, there will be at least 2 stories on the main list from the iReporters, up from almost never a year ago. I feel that the shift to web 4.0 is already beginning, but the members of the web 1.0 generation are too slow to adapt to the current paradigms to realize this. If you look at facebook, with their current attempt to change the overall look and feel of their service, you will find many members who are displeased with this and are jumping ship. Yes there will always be those who are ready to change every time something new comes out, but the vast majority of people prefer status quo to constant change. It won't be the new generation of people that become the luddites, it will be the current generation who is in a constant race to keep up with each day's newest technology and in constant danger of falling off the wagon.

Therefore, what needs to be done to limit apathy towards technology use by universities and to reduce overall costs is to have all the interested parties: professors, students, IT, administrators, and TAs as well as any others sit down and have an honest discussion of the needs of technology and to get a custom designed solution rather than settling for an off the shelf, out of the box solution.


Just my 2 cents worth.