Computer
assisted classes on the rise
By
Sean Emery
On-line Forty-Niner
In
order to meet demand for faculty technology
training, Cal State Long Beach’s academic
computing services department is being forced
to find new ways to deliver support and
training for instructors, despite ongoing
budget cuts.
The
past few years have seen a rise in the number
of hybrid and online courses, which deal
extensively with the use of new technology.
According to Richard Outwater, the director
for technology planning, of the 2,000 faculty
members at CSULB, about 800 are involved
in the BeachBoard system, which provides
the backbone for these new technologies.
The BeachBoard system has also proven to
be popular among students. According to
a survey of 4,000 students recently taken
by the university, 90 percent of those interviewed
preferred classes offered in the BeachBoard
system to their more traditional counterparts.
“The
faculty is obviously smart enough to realize
that our students like it,” said Outwater.
“It works for [students], so it’s
going to work for us.”
In
order to facilitate the use of these new
technologies by instructors, the university
provides support services for faculty through
the academic computing services department.
The goal of these support services is to
fulfill the requirements of the academic
technology policy that was passed last spring
by the Academic Senate, which stated that
“the university shall offer the necessary
training and support services for faculty
teaching with academic technology.”
These
efforts to provide technological support
and instruction for faculty have been made
more difficult by the continuing budget
cuts that academic computing services, along
with the rest of the university, has been
forced to endure. This year saw a 4 percent
reduction in the budget, and it is planning
for an expected eight percent reduction
next year.
So
far, the most visible effect that the budget
difficulties have had on the academic computing
services department has been the loss of
several staff members. These staff members
were temporary workers, who the department
was unable to rehire after their contracts
expired.
“Right
now we have only two full-time staff who
are running the BeachBoard program,”
Outwater said. “I am working on some
strategies to make the BeachBoard program
more important and bring more of the staff
in academic computing involved in helping
to support faculty”
The
current budget for the BeachBoard system
this year is $220,000, a figure that Outwater
expects to stay about the same next year.
However, there are plans to expand the BeachBoard
program by bringing indirect resources,
such as the technology help desk, into the
program.
“You
will see the BeachBoard program expanding
even though our budget is shrinking,”
Outwater said. “That’s my challenge
for next year.”
In
order to accomplish this, the university
is looking at ways to make its faculty training
and support service programs more efficient,
while at the same time continuing to provide
adequate services.
“We
are looking at ways to reorganize,”
said Crista Copp, the instructional technology
manager. “In some ways it breaks down
some walls and barriers, but it will still
make it difficult for the next couple years.”
There
will be a continued emphasis on faculty
workshops put on by academic computing services,
and designed to answer faculty questions
and concerns about emerging technology.
“For BeachBoard there is an extensive
series of workshops that deal with getting
started as well as more advanced issues,”
said Edwin McBride, the director of academic
computing services. “These advanced
issues are often a response to concerns
expressed by the faculty.”
In
keeping with the goal of the university
to expand the presence and size of the BeachBoard
program, many of the workshops offered to
faculty are designed to teach instructors
how to use BeachBoard and its related services.
“We
try to focus our efforts on BeachBoard because
it allows us to reach many more faculty
members,” McBride said. “We
only have a staff of 20-some people, and
a lot of them are doing equipment work,
so we don’t have a lot of people available.”
The
university is also continuing efforts to
provide instruction on the use of media
in the classroom and on BeachBoard. Workshops
are being offered to instructors who are
interested in learning about topics such
as video editing and Web page development,
in order to help them integrate media into
their course curriculum.
“More
instructors are getting involved with Web
design and audio/video,” said Walter
Gajewski, the faculty services manager.
“We are also seeing more faculty assigning
their students multimedia projects.”
New
faculty members are being introduced to
the technology that is available on campus
during their orientations to the campus,
as well as through events such as the “Academic
Technology Faculty Beach Bash” which
will be held for the third consecutive year
this August.
“BeachBoard
has become an integral part of the new faculty
orientation,” said Michael Blazey,
the director of facility and technology
planning for the College of Liberal Arts.
“When new folks come on campus in
the fall they are given an introduction
to the BeachBoard system.”
Academic
computing services also run what they call
the “Inspired Insite” lab in
LA5. The lab, which is reserved solely for
instructor use, is meant as a place for
instructors to go to get their technology
based questions answered.
“A
lot of instructors will come in with a specific
problem,” said Matthew Dessem, the
faculty training support manager. “The
lab is available for instructors to come
in for training and help.”
The
challenge the department faces is keeping
up with the demand for the instructor training
and support while dealing with the realities
of a reduced budget.
“We
are going through a laborious process right
now to figure out how we can maintain the
schedule that we have had in recent years,”
McBride said.
According
to Outwater, student workers will be increasingly
put into technological support roles. Traditional
clerical work, such as dealing with printing
in the campus computer labs, will become
more automated, while student workers will
be moving into different positions, such
as helping with software issues, and working
one-on-one to deal with technological support.
“We’d
like to move the student help we have into
positions that are more productive,”
Outwater said. “We may use fewer student
workers, but we’ll be using them in
a more selective and productive way.”
The
academic computing services department is
also looking into ways in which to make
the workshops more cost effective. Ideas
such as putting workshops and the handouts
that go with them online have been put forth.
There is also the possibility of putting
the workshops on DVDs, although issues such
as duplication costs and the lack of availability
of DVD players for some instructors would
have to be worked out.
The
move toward wireless access on the CSULB
campus will also have a large effect on
both the topics being taught in the workshops,
and on the way in which the workshops are
being taught.
“One
thing that is going to change the technology
landscape is wireless [access],” McBride
said. “All classrooms are going to
become potential computer classrooms, and
there are going to be a lot of professors
who are going to need training on how to
develop these new opportunities.”
Gajewski
said he also believes that wireless access
will help the department to more effectively
put on the technology workshops, since the
ability of instructors to bring in their
own computer and access the lab will allow
more people to attend.
“We
don’t anticipate having to cut the
number of workshops, in fact we are hoping
to increase them,” Gajewski said.
“It’s just that we are talking
about ways to present them more cost effectively.”
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