W. Wesley Wasmundt
Special Projects Coordinator, Educational Leadership



Abstract:
This study focuses on the attitudes, practices, and experiences of a group of UIS Faculty who use technology-enhanced classrooms. They provide a representative sample of faculty at UIS and UIS is representative of many small liberal arts campuses that are emerging in this twenty-first century with technologically-sophisticated infrastructure.

Content:
I am writing in this case because I believe the University of Illinois at Springfield is hardly unique, offering an example that may fit other campuses promoting high-tech learning facilities.

In my case, what started as an online relationship through UIS Liberal Studies Online program in 2001, continued in smart classrooms in my graduate program in 2004-06, and has resulted in a high-quality educational experience.

While buildings and tools may be important, the human exchange between an instructor and student still matter. Has UIS lived up to its birthright of cultivating the spirit of innovation, openness, and adaptability spoken by President Spencer while the campus was in its infancy? He also stated, The university also asks faculty and students to question the learning process and to experiment, testing new and old techniques of teaching, and to encourage independent study wherever feasible.

What began for me with an eye toward dozens of impersonal surveys administered online, became a very personal and intimate look at the thoughts and feelings of several UIS faculty members. I was both surprised and encouraged as I questioned each of them about their attitudes toward technology, especially technologies found in UIS smart classrooms. In addition to the questions I asked, each filled in a written survey with over seventy questions. One of the most surprising general impressions I was dissuaded of was the conventional wisdom that older faculty dislike technology and younger faculty love it.

My considered understanding of this research is both simple and complex: simple, in that the faculty members surveyed are generally positive toward the potential that learning technology can afford; complex, in the sense that there are many factors yet unexplored in the realm of training, alternative technology, and back-to-the-basics application of solid scholarship.