IT works: student perspectives

Alysha Chan '08, Catherine Magee '10, Carol Toro '10, and Nancy Townsend '09

Overview - What do students value in instructional technology (IT) used on campus today? How do students use IT in and outside of the classroom? What do students think works best in their learning environments?

Carol (foreign languages major)
Carol finds Sakai, the college's online learning and collaborative environment useful. Some Sakai tools have made her life easier:

• Announcements - an effective way to reach everyone in the class so students from all of the colleges get the info. This doesn't always work with email.
• Gradebook - helps me track my progress all semester, not just at the end.
• Resources - articles, course notes, etc., are accessible from anywhere, like Starbucks. It's our choice if we want to waste paper.
• Syllabus - never gets lost.
• Wiki - a lot of professors don't use this tool. It's helpful for group projects, to delegate assignments and see progress - like a digital white board.
• Discussion - a more comfortable environment for a shy person because you can think about what you want to say and then formulate your answer.

Question: How did your professor encourage you to use the Discussion tool?
Answer: It was graded. We had a discussion question every two weeks.

Kate (Biochemistry major)
Kate described two creative uses of IT:

1. Prof. Poon's ochem.com website has an exam archive with detailed answers, Quicktime tutorials: 23-30 minutes - with pre-lecture information that helps. It's a lot easier to see electrons bond in a video. There are other resources there.
   
2. Prof. Poon also has a remote control clickers. They encourage participation because it's worth 7% of our grade. It's interactive. And it lets the professor judge how well students understand the materials.
   

For more information about classroom response systems, see "Keeping Clickers in the Classroom."

Alysha (3/2 Engineering major, Hispanic Studies minor)

Most professors don't do anything that great....Two things I find interesting:

1. Document camera - allows you to zoom into documents and project on a screen.
2. Integration of other media into PowerPoint (i.e., a YouTube video in a Spanish class)

Nancy (Studio Arts major)
What IT works:

• Resource tool in Sakai and other electronic resources
• Document camera with art books
• PowerPoint or slides
• AV Department: access to video, photo, and audio equipment
• When professors allow different mediums for projects, like digital collages and websites, instead of only written papers
  
• Video presentations

Next Steps - What would you like to see in the future?

• More consistent websites
• More electronic communication from professors to students
• Wish more professors would use Sakai, and more tools in Sakai
• Scanners in the library