By Daisy Z. Dailey
Remember the "old days" when your teacher got out the overhead projector and put up a transparency to illustrate multiplication tables or show a list of spelling words? The use of technology in classrooms has come a long way since then. These days, it is possible to "wire" a classroom so that students and their instructors can access the Internet; use specialized software for math, engineering and other areas of study; view video clips; or interact with their peers almost anywhere in the world.
In order to equip Cornell "teaching spaces" -- classrooms, lecture halls, computer labs and other places where instruction takes place -- with such resources, the Faculty Advisory Board on Information Technologies (FABIT) first established levels (tiers) of technology requirements for classrooms and then recommended that all Cornell classrooms be enhanced so that they meet minimum technology standards, with some of the teaching spaces meeting higher standards. According to Carrie Regenstein, associate director for academic technology and staff coordinator of the teaching spaces initiative, "Faculty need to be confident that they will find the resources they need -- technology and support -- wherever they teach on campus."
In response to these recommendations, the provost allocated resources, and FABIT then accepted proposals from faculty for instructional projects that improve technology in teaching spaces. The first call for proposals went out to faculty in April 1996 for implementation during the 1996-97 academic year. By now, new computers, network connections, data and video projectors and other audio-video equipment have been purchased and installed to allow instructors to use computer-based presentation materials such as digitized images, Web-based text and images, and live or taped video in classrooms.
Allocations were made for 11 projects in six colleges. Among these are
improvements made to classrooms in Uris Hall (including Uris Auditorium),
to Room 157 of East Sibley Hall (a College of Architecture,
Art and Uris Auditorium seats 500 students, with 16 classes held there each
year. Its audio-visual and projection systems were upgraded, which "will
significantly enhance a lecturer's ability to supplement his or her spoken
presentation with creative combinations of video, data and audio effects,"
said Jane Pedersen, director of administration and finance for the College
of Arts and Sciences.
Technology upgrades have helped Architecture, Art and Planning use Room
157 E. Sibley for dynamic class sessions in which students in architecture
and the fine and applied arts can critique each other's work, said Kent
Hubbell, the Nathaniel and Margaret Owings Distinguished Professor and
chair of the architecture department. "Using the digital projectors
and classroom network connections, students present their work and the
work of students at other universities for discussion and critique. This
newly upgraded classroom is indispensable for the department, since students
increasingly use computer-aided visualization in their design work,"
Hubbell said.
This spring, videoconferencing technology is being used by CALS to link
the food science departments in Stocking Hall and the Geneva Experiment
Station. The equipment, which is capable of real-time audio and video communications,
enables full interaction between an instructor at one site and students
at one or more remote sites. "The technology can be used to link with
people anywhere in the world For example, food science students at Ithaca,
Geneva and Ohio State University recently 'attended' a question-and-answer
session with the president-elect of the Institute of Food Technologists,
a professional organization for food scientists, who was speaking from
Massachusetts," said Dennis Miller, chair of the Food Science Department
in Ithaca.
Paulette Clancy, associate professor in the School
of Chemical Engineering, said, "The provost's classroom improvement
initiative is one of the most important in-house programs that I have witnessed
since I joined the faculty nearly a decade ago." Clancy, who is chair
of the Engineering College's Computing Policy Committee and its representative
to FABIT, goes on to say that beyond physical improvements to classrooms
and teaching effectiveness, there have been other, less tangible effects
of the provost's program. "One encouraging outcome has been that the
team of people working on these projects is beginning to coordinate computer-aided
instruction across the campus with potentially important savings in time
and money as the result," she said.
FABIT already has accepted proposals for the next round of classroom
technology projects to be implemented in 1997-98. In addition to continuing
to raise the minimum technology standard in numerous classrooms, there
also will be "experiments," such as using a wireless network
and students using laptop computers in a classroom setting.
"The goal for all of these projects," Regenstein said, "is
to encourage innovation in instruction using information technology."
For more information about the classroom technologies guidelines and
services, see the Classroom
Technologies Web site.