Bridging Technology and Academ
Bridging Technology and AcademAbstract
The current information technology mediums, such as the Internet pose exciting new opportunities for researchers and educators and, at the same time, present numerous questions and challenges. One of the current frustrations of many faculty includes their limited conceptual grasp of how these technologies can benefit themselves and their students. For certain, the Internet as it currently exists, is largely an undefined and unrefined information resource. This ostensible weakness, however, provides early adopters of these infant technologies to participate in and to define the role of the Internet for our discipline before it gets defined for us. The primary objectives of this paper are to present the potential of technology to faculty just beginning to consider it, as well as open a dialogue with colleagues regarding its utility as a research tool and a heuristic device in the sociology classroom. Three specific questions guide the discussion: 1) Why should sociologists concern themselves with the Internet?; 2) What are the various Internet technologies available to sociologists?, and; 3) How can faculty begin to integrate these technologies into their classrooms and research.
Key words: teaching sociology, information technology, on-line teaching
Introduction
Information technology is quickly becoming the hub of efforts within the higher education community. Indeed, colleges and universities have demonstrated a fierce rush to amass technological tools, and are only now addressing the possibilities for adapting them to academic use. Ideally, new networked information technologies, such as the World Wide Web and E-mail will become fruitful pedagogical tools for faculty of all disciplines. As academic libraries are "virtualized" and classrooms are equipped for Internet, teleconferencing, and distance learning, faculty are left to rethink and redefine their role as educators. It may be that the higher education community has constructed technology around education, and now must meet the challenge of re-building education around technology. Inventing technological-enabled education falls principally on the shoulders of university faculty, who must learn the hardware and software functionality of the new technologies, innovate educational uses that meet curriculum needs, and implement a new technology teaching paradigm for their respective disciplines.
The new technology teaching paradigm is largely an autonomous, non-centralized venture within and across the academic community. Within universities, available technology is usually utilized by a small segment of the faculty population. Across universities, technological-enabled teaching efforts are also scattered and individualized. Geoghegan (1994) explains this phenomenon by categorizing faculty into technological-use groups -- "innovators," early adopters, "mainstream," traditional faculty, and the "nonadopters," those who will never adopt technologies into their classrooms. Geoghegan emphasizes that the majority of faculty need assistance in "crossing the chasm" to become "innovators."
Many obstacles lie at the chasm between faculty technology non-use and use in the classroom, including infrastructure deficiencies, lack of technical training support, lack of incentive, lack of preparation time, and lack of...
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