New Approaches to

Learning Technology
A presentation for the
11th Annual Massachusetts Community College Conference on
Teaching, Learning and Student Development
April 11, 2008
North Shore Community College

Dori Digenti
Director, Center for Teaching and Learning
Berkshire Community College
ddigenti.wordpress.com

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Quick Facts Berkshire CC

Fall 2007 FTE: 1343
F/T Faculty: 55 P/T Faculty: 140
New Center for Teaching and
Learning
Two Title III grants: distance & online
services (coop GCC, 2003);
developmental ed & prof dev (2006)
Main, South County, Downtown
(2008) campuses
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Why Technology?
Students want tech, according to ECAR*
Study of (27,000 students/103
colleges/6% CC)
Over 80% of students want moderate to
extensive use of technology in classes
Students cite advantages:
prompt feedback
better research
collaboration with classmates
control of course activities
improves learning
more engaged

Copyright
2008. AllResearch
rights reserved.
*Educause Center of
Applied

Why Technology?
Accommodates learning styles (if
used properly), UDL principles
Supports distance learners = greater
access for working students, parents,
placebound students
Possibility of more time on task;
review
Prepares students for the working
world
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Premise: Learning new technology

is a change process
Kurt Lewin
parent of group process & change
Unfreeze, change, refreeze
Margaret Wheatley, Peter Senge, others
Living systems, systems dynamics,
learning organizations
Feedback loops, adaptation, selforganizing
David Cooperrider
Appreciative Inquiry
strengths-based, root cause of success,
replication
Edgar Schein
Organizational culture
Artifacts, espoused values, core
assumptions
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Learning Anxiety

With Change comes???

Resistance
Delay
PLEs = perfectly logical excuses
Refusal
Say yes, mean no
Learn/use the absolute minimum
Go through the motions = skimming
Stay under the radar
Hunker down until the threat passes
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Scheins Learning Anxiety

Comes from having to unlearn; change a
habit
Fear of looking stupid, not fitting in with
group (either too behind OR too ahead)
Can result in loss of individual identity
Survival anxiety comes in to play
To deal with learning anxiety, some orgs
decide to raise survival anxiety levels
(new process starting Monday)
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Scheins Learning Anxiety

However, Schein advises its more
effective to lower the learning anxiety
than to raise the survival anxiety
How?
Helping people see the advantage of the
new learning, AND
Create a safe environment in which
learning can take place
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Learning Anxiety as Technostress

A modern disease of adaptation caused by an
inability to cope with the new computer
technologies in a healthy manner (Brod,1984)
Causes of technostress
Fear of breaking something
Rapid outdating of skills (Vista, Office 2007)
Incomprehensible error messages
Relying on technology that may not work
Loss of data
System inaccessible when needed
Bug-ridden upgrades
Time sink
Overwhelmed by number of new technologies

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A Sensitive Topic
Minnesota college consortium study of 261
faculty members (2002) showed that:
Faculty age is significantly related to certain
attitudes about and perceptions of educational
technology. Faculty members younger than 40
appear to be more strongly attracted to the use
of educational technology, and faculty
members older than 40 appear to be more
concerned about the use of educational
technology and that its use be pedagogically
constructive
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Learning Strategies
AT BCC, individualizing is key:
Layered learning: overview,
example, applied
Cybercafe, overview sessions
Teacher demonstrations
Hands-on with course materials
Open labs, faculty mentors
Superstations with manuals
Online tutorials
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First Things FirstDo They

Understand Technology?

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Basic File Management Session

Basic Principle of File Management #1:
File management on a computer is akin to
managing the papers in your office:

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Basic File Management Session

Basic Principle of File Management #2:
We mostly work with files. Files are what we save on our computers, whether they are
Powerpoint, Word, Excel, or other. We create files or documents in applications, like
Word, etc. We organize files in folders, and folders are then saved on drives, for
example, your C: drive or hard drive, also known as storage devices. When we doubleclick a drive, we see a list of files and folders called a directory. Our list of drives, folders,
and files is called the taxonomy. We are viewing our files and folders by using Windows
Explorer, which is for accessing your computers information. Internet Explorer is used
for accessing information on the web (youd think they could have made this less
confusing ).

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Basic File Management

II. Views
Windows allows several views of your folders and files

Thumbnails: Big icons with borders

Tiles: Large icons in list
Icons: Smaller icons in rows
List: List with very small icons
Details: Folder/file name, size, type, date (very useful for searching, see Searching,
below)
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BCCs CyberCafe

Trade show atmosphere

Safe to browse and ask questions
One-on-one consultations
Informal conversations
Faculty take hands-on approach
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Faculty Peer Demonstrations

Faculty demonstrate how they have
used technology in their courses
Collegial, confidence-building
Opportunity to learn across disciplines
Classroom relevance
Repetition is good

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Hands-on with Course Materials

Next step is semi-tutorial = small class size
Work with learners own course materials
Customized to level of group
Challenge is cross-disciplinary language
Dept by dept is another strategy
Moves away from skimming approach

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Open Lab & Faculty Mentors

Truly individualized instruction once
foundation knowledge is established,
or for advanced users
Keep open lab going; takes a while
for people to feel comfortable
Faculty mentors can be available in
lab, or meet in offices
The most tech-savvy instructors may not
be the best mentors
comrades-in-arms approach

Relaxed, user is in control

atmosphere is essential
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Self-Directed Learners
Set up faculty superstations with
basic and advanced software
Plan for video, audio, scanning,
Acrobat, video editing, etc. support
Reference library of manuals for selfinstruction/reference
Links for online tutorials

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Examples of Short Tutorials

Online tutorials
Smart Technologies two-minute
tutorials
http://smarttech.com/trainingcenter/tutor
ials.asp#

Common Craft on Youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnL00TdmLY

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So, Is It Working?
Yes
Exponential increase in use of CMS (Sp 2004: 9 faculty
to Fall 2006: 53 faculty)
Greater use of ppt, Web, smart classrooms (doc camera,
Smartboards)
Fall 2005: most commonly used applications were Email,
Internet, WebCT, MS Word, and PowerPoint
Spring 2008: Flash drives, PowerPoint, Internet, Pdf

Regular workshop offerings with steady attendance

No
Non-adopters have not adopted!
Skimming still an accepted mode
Ways to turn nos to yess
Mini-grants for adoption
Coming at technology from UDL, Learning Styles, Millenial
approaches
Getting Results new faculty training program
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Resources
ECAR report
http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERS0706/ekf0706.pdf

Multi-College Faculty Survey: Experiences with Educational

Technology at the University of Minnesota, April 2003
http://dmc.umn.edu/surveys/faculty/faculty-survey-2002.pdf

Coutu, D. L.,The Anxiety of Learning (Interview of Ed

Schein). Harvard Business Review, March 2002
http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/hbsp/hbr/articles/article.jsp?articleID=R0203H&ml_acti
on=get-article&print=true

Hudiburg, Richard A., Assessing and Managing

Technostress, 115th Annual Meeting of the American
Library Association, July 8, 1996, New York.
http://www2.una.edu/psychology/alatalk.htm

Brod, Craig. Technostress: the Human Cost of the Computer

Revolution, Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1984.

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