Vincent F. Art Major Senior Yr.

First off, I'd like to say that although I am an art major, my true passion is in computers and technologies in general so it is my dream to one day see schools and companies take full advantages of what our high tech world has to offer!
With that said, I am currently quite disappointed as how slow this process is going. There has been only about 2 classes that used technology to help teach in the classroom. One of my freshmen English courses had us use forums as a way to critique each others works. That was a great idea I though. It allows comments and reviews from your peers at any given time, and the feed backs are pretty fast since all the students are doing similar assignment.
Another Class that had us use technology, or internet to be specific, is one of my Art history class. But it wasn’t all that “innovative” since it was just a way to get your assignments, syllabus and sometimes being able to view past pictures that we went through in class. That’s as far as it goes.
I think much of it has to do with how a professor teaches, how they want to change their way of teaching and how fearful they are of technology. I have heard a few teachers say that they do not trust E-mail or that it is not reliable. It truly pains me to hear such words!
If professors are willing to look at the ways people use the web these days, especially high school and college kids, they would see so much potential in the applications and websites they use. How they can use them to make their classes more streamline, interactive, multimedia and even more educational than before.
Humor me for a bit longer, as I give you my idea of how a modernized classroom would be like. Using a Art 101 as an sample class. This class has a large amount of slides that professor goes through in the semester. Its great to be able to see it in a class room through a projector, but how great would it be if you can have access to these pictures to study from any time you want throughout the semester? Not to mention having the professor upgrade to a computer base projector would be great as oppose to the slide projectors. The Pictures we get are digitized, quality are much better and clearer and it allow us to organize, make notes and perhaps print them out for studying aid.
How about papers? Upload them to a dedicated server not unlike WebCT and allow the professor to view them and make comments on them would be nice. Many professors are doing that by email, but it can be streamlined for better efficiency I think. Using forum or Bulletin Boards would be great for questioning and commenting during a class session.
As some of you out there may point out that some are doing this already, but only some and not everyone is doing this. It’s probably also having to do with the program schools chooses to use. WebCT, from my limited use is not a very user friendly for both professors and students. But if they can make it easier and more use friendly for professors and students to use, it I think it would be great and point us towards the right direction in high tech learning.

Jessica Downa- Instructional Design - 1st year


Blended learning is becoming more and more popular amongst instructors in education as we progress into the 21st century. Although in most cases it takes longer to prepare, I feel as if its effects are more widely accessible and longer lasting if the skill set to access the information are met. It is typical to have some online resources or training available to students in just about every area of study, although most student are familiar with using the internet and familiar with accessing information via a computer some students may not be. In a typical classroom the computer literacy skills will vary widely amongst the students, some will be very tech savvy while others will struggle with using a computer and accessing information online. This could impair the teacher’s objectives and provide a steeper learning curve for the class. Students who are less tech savvy may be spending more time on accessing the material and becoming familiar with a computer than in learning the instructional materials. Accessing information online and using a computer to complete tasks is an important skill set in preparing for the “real world” work place, but if a student who is supposes to be focusing on a class learning objective spends more time on trying to access materials online this could become a nightmare for both the instructor and the student. I feel it is important for instructors to develop assessment instruments to measure the learners abilities to access online materials before structuring a classroom activity around it. Having strong online training and resources is useless if all students in a class cannot access it. For example in my INSDG601 class a Course Compass access key was accompanied with my (very expensive) text book, the access key was to give us access to the PowerPoint files and other learning materials inside of a course management system, as of the 3rd class none of 16 students were able to access this information. I was even having issues, being particularly technology savvy this made me really frustrated. I spend well over an hour trying to gain access to these files with no luck at all. Finally the teacher sent us her user name and password so we could access the files, still only ½ the class was able to figure out how to get to these files in the end the professor decided not to use this material.

Katie Sullivan, Environmental, Earth and Ocean Science, 3rd year.

Almost three years ago, when I started at Umass Boston, using the internet as a way of communicating with my professors as well as keeping up to date with other school related issues, seemed completely foreign to me. Coming from a small, all girls catholic school where purchasing six Gateway laptops during the final months of my senior year, was a huge investment that involved articles in our school newsletter as well as acknowledgement at all school events afterwards.
So when a professor announced my second semester that the syllabus as well as the Powerpoint presentations would be posted on WebCT, I was not exactly sure how to react, but I soon realized this would be an excellent resource and one that I have come to rely on. With WebCT, a professor using Powerpoint presentations in lectures can post the slides either before class so students can print them out to take notes on during the lecture, or after class as a review of what was discussed in lecture. Either way, when a test rolls around, there are all of the powerpoint slides for you, which can make an excellent study guide. And coming from an environmentalist's point of view, posting syllabi, study guides, notes, slides, etc. online can save a lot of paper.
WebCT also makes it possible for students to take a class online, with the option of being at any location, as long as there is a computer with internet access. Over the winter intercession, I decided to take a course to get a little ahead; however, since I spend 2/3 of my time in Boston for school, I was not ready to sacrifice going home to see my family. An online class was the perfect solution, I could be away from Boston and still take a course. With the chatroom option as well as the forum and mail options, I could communicate with my professor and my classmates without ever feeling like I was losing anything by taking the course online.
Besides WebCT, my Wiser account is another online service that I could not live without. Basically, it allows me to have most of my questions answered without having to step foot in the long line at the One Stop Shop. With Wiser, I can manage my classes, Add/Drop/Changing to Pass/Fall, check my grades, check my exam schedule, access to my Degree Audit so I know what classes I should take and be prepared when I meet with my advisor, as well as checking on my finances and I am notified on the welcome page if there are any Holds I need to take care of. Basically, I go to my Wiser account for everything before braving any administrative offices.
When I graduated high school, I never thought I would rely on the internet for school related affairs, but if it wasn't for WebCT and Wiser I would have a lot more headaches from the One Stop Shop and I would be handing out pamphlets about recycling all the paper we receive in the classroom. But with any website, there are possibilities of internet problems so it is good not to wait to the last minute, just in case.

Do computers make everything harder?

John Mazz - Art Major - 4th Year

I have a part time job as a freelance graphic designer (Fancy title!). Basically, A Friend of my mom's owns a small news paper in Norfolk Mass, and when he needs advertisements created, I make them for him for around 15-20$, depending if they get used. Its usually not a hard job, but occasionally (usually the day before his paper goes to print) I get slammed with five or six ad requests. I spent most of the night yesterday, up until around 1:AM working on some last minute ads for him. When I finished, I got up and crawled to bed, thinking how hard I had worked for the past few hours.

Then I thought, I was complaining about working 8 hours in photoshop making advertisements for things like TJ's Construction and Prudential Pack Realty and Statler & Waldorf's Funeral Home. But was that as hard as having to dig a ditch for 8 hours? Do I have any right to complain about my head ache and eye-strain when there are guys out installing roof tiles forty feet in the air some where down the street? I don't think Jimmy the Construction worker or Shamus the Longshoreman would have any sympathy for me (in fact, they'd probably punch me in the face a few times).

More and more people are learning computers and making a living from them. Are computers and the Internet expanding our knowledge, or narrowing it? If I had to install a sink, or lay some asphalt, I'd be hopelessly lost. I wonder if by teaching more people how to use computers, we're getting rid of all the construction workers and longshoremen. We'll be a race of Tech-savy people with no one to fix our pluming, all complaining about headaches and eyestrain.

But don't get me wrong, if I had to pick between working pluming or working DSL, I'll take the DSL every time.