Office of Information Technology

Technology Advisory Board (TAB)
Minutes of Meeting of February 20, 2002

Location: 4th Floor Conference Room, Andy Holt Tower
Time: 2:00 - 3:00pm

Attendance:

Members: Bill Britten, Will Carver, Chris Cimino, Jim Gehlhar, Ray Hamilton, Nathan Hammer, Matt Johnson, Julie Little, Bryce McKenzie, John Mount, Faye Muly, Marla Peterson, Phil Stimac

Others: Nancy Gnilka, Jean Derco

Amendment of TAB Bylaws

A motion to accept the amendments to the Technology Advisory Board Bylaws was passed by the Board. The majority of changes addressed the many title and organizational changes within the university.

Teaching with Technology - Pilot Program Proposed

The student members of TAB indicated last fall they would like to review the direction and focus of the Technology Fee award approach where the main emphasis was to build up information technology resources on campus. The Technology Fee has provided a rich environment of hardware and software in departmental and public labs since its inception. Now they feel it is time to look at making more effective use of these resources in the teaching and learning environment.

In response to this interest, Dr. Julie Little and Dr. Jean Derco from the Division of Educational Technology presented a proposal on a pilot project to address the use of information technology within a departmental program context. Educational Technology's Innovative Technology Center (ITC) already offers several programs to engage faculty use of information technology in the classroom:

• Teaching with Technology Grants - a faculty member develops a web-based tutorial on a "general topic" that can be shared across courses
• Faculty First Grants - ITC develops a technology-enhanced project; faculty member provides content.

These programs, although successful for their intended purpose, focus on individual faculty members. They do not aid in the redesign of entire courses or significantly contribute to departmental reform in using technology in teaching.

The proposed pilot program would be a blend of the Teaching with Technology and Faculty First programs. ITC would work with a departmental faculty team to redesign a General Education course with multiple sections for technology enhancement. ITC would consult with the faculty involved to agree on what aspects of the course would be appropriate for technology-enhancement. For example: create online tutorials for students, create web-based discussions, create a "Master" Blackboard site that is duplicated for each section.

The pilot program is estimated to cost approximately $65,000. There was a general consensus amongst the board members to support Technology Fee funding for this proposal. It was noted the university also needs to make SMART classrooms more readily available throughout the entire campus to accommodate the use of information technology in teaching.

Next Meeting

Due to the Spring Break, the March 20th meeting has been rescheduled to Wednesday, March 27th at 2pm in the Andy Holt Tower 4th floor conference room.

Minutes Prepared by: Nancy Gnilka