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In an era when the ability to use a computer is considered as expected as the ability to read and write, it’s no surprise that universities feel the pressure to step up their technology efforts. At Sac State, the University’s embrace of technology has been a careful tightrope walk between convenience and the human touch.

Technology: No Place for Wimps! —Scott Adams, Dilbert Creator

“The University’s push in the technology realm is driven in the main by our sense that this is something students have come to expect,” says Joseph Sheley, (‘69, Social Science) provost and vice president for academic affairs. “If you look at number of students using laptops to take notes in class, when you have papers given back to you that clearly have been generated—and not necessarily inappropriately— by access to large search engines, when you walk over to the computer labs in the Academic Information Resource Center and see they’re constantly packed with students, it’s an indication that our students do use technology in their learning.”

Sheley says it also is evident in the way faculty members communicate with students outside of the classroom. There are frequent exchanges of e-mails. Many faculty set up web pages that provide reference lists and additional supplementary materials. Students submit papers online, allowing faulty members to make remarks that remain embedded in the document.

And with chat room technology, faculty member don’t always have to answer individual e-mails. Instead it can lead to a chat room discussion, says Mark Stoner, communication studies professor and Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. —Arthur C. Clarke

Among the most intriguing, and at times challenging aspects, of today’s technology is the flexibility it provides students, and how it changes their expectations of how to structure their time, Sheley says.

“Brand new freshmen come on campus and they’re used to using all segments of the clock. They sleep, study and socialize at different time periods than students used to. How do we accommodate those students in places like the library and residence halls? What is ‘prime time”? When are they more likely to want classes? What‘s a study group: face–to–face or in chat rooms?’

Sheley adds the challenge is in how to give a quality education ”without bending them to our way of doing things.“

But the speed with which students are used to doing things also offers challenges for faculty members to not go too far the other way. For students used to texting and instant messaging, instantaneous feedback becomes expected. But when 20 students are expecting it at the same time, it’s not going to able to be delivered. Increasingly, faculty must set boundaries of what is reasonable.

Why shouldn’t we give our teachers a license to obtain software, all software, any software, for nothing? Does anyone demand a licensing fee each time a child is taught the alphabet? —William Gibson

Stoner says he finds technology to be a two-edged sword. Some forms of technology, such as the coursework software program Web CT, facilitate certain kinds of interactions with students. “It’s easier to once a week backfill material that can be handled in text form or as a podcast. With Web CT, I can make an announcement about something that has come up or resources I’ve come across. It also offers a forum for students to help each other.”

But he also worries about the potential loss of face-to-face interaction and the verbal and non-verbal communication that comes with it. “Technology requires structure and the way to provide structured information in understandable ways is usually in text form. When you post to discussion lists or send email, information is exchanged but dialogue goes down.”

Face-to-face interaction is much richer and much quicker than sending messages back and forth, he says, because you have the added benefit of tone of voice and other non-verbal cues that help your students interpret your message. “There are real limits on what you can do with technology if you are trying to get to higher-order thinking and interaction with students.

We have to be careful about how it is used. The trick is thinking through what the capability is for any technology is and hooking it to the practical outcomes we are after.

“There’s something about face-to-face human interaction that is irreplaceable.”

Getting information off the Internet is like taking a drink from a fire hydrant. —Mitchell Kapor

Where technology has truly boomed for students is in the area of research. To “Google” has reached verb status in the dictionary and almost no topic is out of reach of a Web search.

Linda Goff (’71, Social Science) has seen academic technology advance by leaps and bounds since taking her first computer course in 1972. Her focus now is on library research, teaching students the best ways to use the library technology that is available to them. “We have invested thousands of hours in cataloging material to make things accessible to students,” she says.

While Goff is the first to say a good search engine is a boon to a student research paper, she cautions that students must know what their looking at. “Information needs a format,” she says. Just because a source is at the top of a search engine list, doesn’t mean it is credible. “Search engines are now accepted as valid research tools. But no one is charged with evaluating them.”

Sheley agrees. “It can be a challenge for faculty. There’s an entire Internet world where students can pursue questions. It is important that we teach them to be discerning, so that they know what rigorous analysis means,” Sheley says.

I just invent, then wait until man comes around to needing what I’ve invented. —R. Buckminster Fuller

Through Facebook and other social networking sites, this generation is inventing is new direction of technology, Goff says. “Previously, it was people in power who had access to where information was stored. Now it’s a populist movement letting people determine their own fields.”

And with sites like Wikipedia, the people get to define the data as well. Middlebury College drew national attention when it issued a policy forbidding students from citing Wikipedia as a source in their research papers.

No such ban has been enacted at Sac State. But students are encouraged to be much more enterprising. “Everybody I’ve talked to warns students not to use Wikipedia or commercial kinds of sites as a primary source,” says Stoner. “I emphasize that they need to be using peer-reviewed journals through databases we own or other universities own. The openness of Wikipedia makes it quite suspect, but it can be useful as a starting place to look for references.”

The Internet is the most important single development in the history of human communication since the invention of call waiting.—Dave Barry

Technology has also challenged faculty to rethink the way they give assignments, Sheley says. The ease of searching entire text databases has made it easier for students to “borrow” material.

Leonard Valdez, judicial officer, says plagiarism has not been much of a problem so far at Sac State but the potential is there. “Technology is a wonderful tool,” he says. “And, truthfully, we can never keep up. Half the battle is making people more aware of what is and isn’t an appropriate use.”

Stoner says the University is looking into tracking software such as TurnItIn.com, which faculty can use to search for plagiarized material. But they also give faculty tips on what to look for. “If there is a change in the writer’s voice and they suddenly become fairly erudite that’s a common sign of plagiarism.”

Valdez says the main technology complaints over the years were about music piracy. But he says that is becoming less of an issue. “There are new ways for students to legally access entertainment,” he says. The University entered an agreement with “Ruckus,” a free legal music subscription service that allows students to download an unlimited number of songs to computer.

Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn. —Benjamin Franklin

One area where education technology has been truly life-changing is among students with disabilities. Software programs that can “read” to blind students and closed captioning technology that can translate for the deaf, are among the capabilities that open doors.

For example, says Melissa Repa with Services to Students with Disabilities, JAWS (Job Access With Speech), considered the “gold standard” for readable software, allows a computer-operated voice to read aloud to a blind student what is on the page. The cursor goes to the default position on the upper left-hand corner and starts reading.

“Sac State’s web page is particularly good,” she says, “because the headlines and links are clear and concise. Also, whenever the cursor goes over the University’s logo, the voice reads the University’s motto, “Sacramento State—Leadership Begins Here.”

Another screen reader, ZoomText, enlarges text on the screen for those that are vision impaired but not blind. The contrast also changes under ZoomText to two or three colors—black, white and green—for those that are colorblind as well.

There is also a tracer that can take an image and trace it in Braille so blind students can read things like campus maps and diagrams in textbooks—things that can’t be readily converted to text.

All of these forms of accessibility software are available in every campus computer lab. And Services to Students with Disabilities offers training to any disabled student on all the software programs.



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