ETC aims to change UB learning environment
Educational Technology Center now open, offers comprehensive IT help for faculty members

By SUE WUETCHER
Reporter Editor

Cited by many as a critical component of Access99, the Educational Technology Center (ETC) now is open in Capen Hall to help and encourage faculty members to use information technology in their teaching.

Located in 212 Capen, adjacent to the Science and Engineering Library, ETC's short-term goal is to help those who teach undergraduates to meet the demand of Access99, the student-access-to-computing initiative in which all freshmen entering UB in the fall will be required to have access to a computer and be knowledgeable in document-preparation software, email and the Internet.

But the center's long-term goal, according to Director David Willbern, professor of English and associate vice provost for information technology, is to "produce a critical mass of IT-enhanced courses that will permanently change the learning environment at UB."

ETC will help develop specific courses, enhance general IT literacy among faculty and teaching assistants, and collect and coordinate various IT efforts across campus. The center is open to all full- and part-time faculty members, TAs, adjuncts, lecturers and Millard Fillmore College instructors.

"If we expect students to have computers, we have to have the courses that use technology," Willbern says. "We have to align faculty (computer skills) better with those of the students coming in."

Joseph Tufariello, senior vice provost for educational technology, calls ETC the "centerpiece" of the faculty-development component of Access99. It is designed, he says, to provide faculty with the opportunity to gain experience in the uses of computers that they may not have been exposed to before, such as Web-page design, Java script and PowerPoint.

The center also has a software library where faculty can try out various software packages and get training in their use before deciding whether to purchase them.

Moreover, three graduate students and two full-time staff members will be available to travel to faculty offices to provide guidance on-site for specific problems.

"We're trying to provide the most comfortable way we can to enable faculty to become part of the (Access99) program in as complete a way as they desire," Tufariello says.

Faculty involvement is "critical" to the success of Access99, he says. "If the faculty don't adopt this particular approach to their instruction, it's (Access99) not going work on campus."

Many individual faculty members have followed their own personal interests and already have developed IT applications for their courses, he stressed. But "what's missing in the picture is the faculty member who's been tempted to get into the area, but doesn't know where to turn to get help. We'll be in a position to provide that help with the ETC."

Willbern noted that some faculty members are "anxious" about the university's move toward the increasing use of IT in the classroom. Faculty come to the university expecting to be researchers, teachers and sit on committees; now they mistakenly feel they're expected to be Web masters and show expertise in complex html coding and intricate software packages, he said.

Willbern and other administrators stressed that faculty members will not be forced to participate in the IT revolution. But for those who are interested, the ETC is there for guidance.

The center features a 20-seat, hands-on computer classroom in which center staff will offer instruction in standard software programs, Web-site design, course-management software and other special applications. When not being used for classes, the room will be available as a public computing site for all UB instructors.

The center also has a large open area with six high-end PC workstations and 19-inch monitors that also can be used for group instruction.

ETC also will be the central cite for the "course-team" concept, which focuses IT efforts on high-enrollment freshmen courses-Chemistry 101, Computer Science 101, English 101 and 201, Psychology 101, World Civilization 111-112 and Biology 200. The focus is on these courses, says William Fischer, vice provost for faculty development and coordinator of the "course-team" approach, because "the student expectations will be among the freshmen this year. If they (freshmen) go into their courses and they find that this expectation is for naught, then they are going to be disappointed," he said.

Faculty development working groups have been formed consisting of the core faculty and teaching assistants who teach these six courses and have shown interest in information-technology development, as well as collaborating support staff from the libraries, CIT, the academic nodes and ETC.

In fact, a core group teaching the World Civilization course-which, beginning this fall, will be a general-education requirement for all undergraduates-will participate in a week-long seminar May 17-21 designed to help those instructors use educational technology more effectively in their teaching.

Fischer says the hope is that the upcoming World Civ seminar will be so successful that it will attract the interest of other faculty members who will be teaching sections of the course. The goal, he says, is to offer three or four pilot sections of World Civ "that have interesting and creative information-technology applications for the fall of 1999."

But Fischer stressed that the pedagogical implications of information technology will be just as important to those involved in Access'99 and the ETC as the technology itself.

"The technology isn't going to be worth anything if all we do is reproduce slick, conventional methods of teaching-PowerPoint replaces the blackboard, a video replaces the lecture-and all you're getting is the same mode of teaching, the same methodology in a more expensive version," he said. "What we're all struggling to learn is what the really smart applications of the technology are to improve teaching and student learning."

The ETC, he said, will be the site where faculty members will learn "how to make those improvements, how to make the technology work to improve teaching and learning. It (the center) won't have been entirely successful if all we're doing is familiarizing people with the technology. We have to work on the teaching and learning aspect of it."

Fischer, an English professor and former department chair, pointed out that many people feel that the information-technology age has relegated the "text"- the issues of reading and writing -to a lesser status in the culture. "We have to find out how these new-age/new-technology students learn and how we can better relate our curricular and intellectual responsibilities to that so that we can teach them more effectively," he said.

Willbern said faculty members who are interested in learning more about how to apply IT to their teaching methods to stop by the ETC or access the center's Web site at http://www.etc.buffalo.edu.