Many approaches to the integration of technology into teaching start and end with the technology. This workshop starts with pedagogy -- the teaching and learning goals and approaches of participants. Through conversation among teachers and learners from four different constituencies -- professors, librarians, information technologists, and students -- we hope to accomplish the following:
· Foster communication
across constituencies
· Remove barriers to communication that keep people from
knowing what is needed of them, what they can offer, and what
they are already doing well
· Help everyone develop confidence in what they are doing
and confidence enough to ask what else could they or others be
doing
· Put technology in its place
· Identify/share vocabulary and ways of talking to one
another
· Leave workshop with a specific curricular project to
be implemented
· Build foundations for future collaboration and long-term
relationships
Forums for conversation will include meetings of small groups of like constituents across colleges and teams from individual colleges, large group discussions, and small and large group discussions with experts.
Last year, the Libraries and the Education Programs at Bryn Mawr and Mt. Holyoke Colleges received a grant to support a three-year Technology Initiative for Librarians and Information Technology Staff, Faculty, and Students. The grant was meant to support a one-week workshop to be held at the beginning of the summer, aimed at enhancing our own expertise in relevant areas and producing a model that is usable at other colleges and universities. The first workshop was held at Bryn Mawr College from May22nd-May26th, 2000, and became a valuable and memorable experience for everyone involved. This is our second year, and we hope that our participants come out of it with the same feeling.
The first workshop focused on the social sciences and this year we shall address the humanities. These workshops are intended to be practical, reproducible and forward-looking regarding specific and general visions for collaboration on our campuses. The workshop will include structured conversations among teams of selected librarians, faculty, students in their junior year, and information technologists from each of ten colleges and universities. The conversations will address the question: What is the role of each of these constituencies in creating, storing and retrieving knowledge and how can the constituencies work together to fulfill those roles? The goal is to develop ways in which faculty, librarians, information technologists and students can work together to integrate information technology into classroom teaching.
We will invite experts from around the country to discuss with us the present and future state-of-the-art in this field of collaboration. They will have been briefed on the situations and goals of the participating institutions, drawing on the needs analysis each institution submitted for the planning process, and thus they will be able to demonstrate possibilities and reflect back to the participants what might be best suited for the individual college and university campus. Throughout the workshop, teams will meet in different configurations to craft plans for curricular implementation.
In preparation for the workshop, we would like each member of the four-person team from your campus to consult with her or his colleagues to draw on that constituency's various perspectives. Each team member need only answer the questions directed to the constituency he or she represents, but we suggest the team gather together to provide brief answers to the questions below. The project steering committee, with the help of student interns, will use these answers in helping to design the workshop. In answering the questions below, please consider what your role is in constructing and storing knowledge and how you can work together with the four constituencies involved in this workshop (librarians, faculty, students, and information technologists) to fulfill those roles. Completed forms from the Massachusetts and New York group should be emailed to Susan Perry, sperry@mhc.mtholyoke.edu and from the Pennsylvania group to Elliott Shore, eshore@brynmawr.edu.
What is the course content and what are the pedagogical approaches for which you want to draw on technological resources? Map out the range and variation, including both the content and the kinds of resources you encounter and need.
What roles and responsibilities do you currently assume regarding the use and instruction of technology?
What goals do you have for collaboration in this area?
What resources are you considering devoting to its future development?
What specific resources in the social sciences do you think would best contribute to or support student learning in the classroom? For each full-text database, index or other web-based information source, explain briefly how it could help expand the students' critical information gathering skills.
What roles and responsibilities do librarians on your campus currently assume regarding the instruction in the use of electronic information sources in support of student and faculty research?
What goals do you have for collaboration with faculty, students, and information technologists in the field of electronic information?
What are your learning and research needs as defined by course assignments? Map out the range and variation, including both the content and the kinds of resources you encounter and need.
What goals do you have for collaboration in this area?
What technologies could enhance student and faculty research/teaching/learning? Include a brief description of the technology and a brief explanation of its potential usefulness.
What roles and responsibilities do you currently assume regarding the use and instruction of technology?
What goals do you have for collaboration in this area?
What resources are you considering devoting to its future development?