Millions of dollars of new equipment goes unused because teachers are not trained in its use

As UA replaces blackboards with dry erase boards and electronic white boards, some instructors are not using the technology because theyâre out of the digital loop.

Not all instructors know the tricks to working the technology when they walk into the upgraded classroom where theyâre scheduled to teach on the first day of class.

In the Integrated Learning Center, instructors find wireless keyboards, wireless mice and touch screen monitors on the teaching stations.

The rooms also feature white boards that display what an instructor writes with their stylus on LCD screens and a personal response system that can quiz students instantly.

ăAlmost all of the Spring 2002 ILC faculty who responded to our informal survey at the end of the spring semester said they want to teach in the ILC again,ä said Beth Harrison, Associate Director, University Teaching Center.

ăThere are a number of faculty who were not thrilled to be assigned to a renovated classroom or to the ILC but who, after teaching with the technology and learning how to use it, donât want to go back to a classroom without technology,ä she said.

Five to six years ago, about the same time Power Point presentations started getting popular, UA started renovating and upgrading its classrooms, starting with the Harvill and Social Sciences buildings and then expanding to Economics, Modern Languages and Education buildings.

In addition to projectors displaying Power Point presentations, laptops have become more popular. Visualizers that can display three-dimensional objects, better known by the brand name Elmo, are replacing overhead projectors.

The Equipment Services branch of the University Teaching Center, which provides support, security and maintenance for teaching equipment in rooms not controlled by specific campus departments, receives 15-20 calls per day from instructors requesting assistance.

Most of the calls are user error, not broken equipment, said Ron Landis, supervisor of audio-visual services university teaching center.

The ILC front desk, which covers only the ILC, receives about four to five calls per day.

Many times when members of the University Teaching Center are called out it is for a preventable reason.

ăOften it is a simple thing, like plugging in the piece of equipment,ä Landis said.

ăWhen I go into a room where something doesnât work, I check first to see if it is plugged in. You have to understand that instructorsâ minds are on their class and teaching,ä he said.

Some believe that without training for some of the newer classrooms where a computer controls the lighting, instructors could be left in the dark.

William Alexander, a graduate teaching assistant, found it difficult to use the new technology when preparing for a class he is teaching by just reading the ILC provided information sheet attached in his classroom.

ăI havenât been prepared at all,ä Alexander said. ăI think there should be mandatory training. Too many people will think they can wing it, but looking at this setup there is no way you can.ä

When the ILC first opened and demand for instructors to teach in the new facility was high, the faculty did not ăuniformlyä support the idea for mandatory training, said Randy Richardson, vice president for undergraduate education.

So there was no mandatory training for hi-tech classrooms.

But now, the University Teaching Center offers training for instructor who wants to learn how the newest equipment works. The ILC has two levels of training , one that Chris Johnson, ILC Digital Media Resource Center director, calls ănuts and boltsä training and another more specific one.

Training is mostly done by request, rather than by scheduled classes. The ILC will be doing large group general orientations to the technology several times mid-July and then again in August.

None of the training for the ILC is mandatory.

ăInstructor training is voluntary. This is partly because we canât really require that someone learn to use technology that they didnât ask for, in the case of a class that is arbitrarily assigned to a renovated or ILC room,ä said Harrison , who also does the training. ăIt doesnât do much good to try to teach someone something they donât have any interest in learning,ä she said.

Even though the training is not mandatory, Landisâ goal is to have a classroom for training instructors near the teaching centerâs office. The classroom would be fitted with all the equipment a professor uses during class, so that the teaching center instructors would have a chance to go over how to operate equipment with instructors before class.

ăI donât know if training should be mandatory. I think it will be helpful. In this class I just had the instructor had to have a student help her out,ä said Erica Mortensen, a psychology sophomore.

Harrison said that there is a narrowing gap between the instructors proficient in technology and those not.