How are you using technology in the classroom?

I use technology in my class presentations, and I also encourage students to use technology get actively involved and create and/or bring in different kinds of examples of whatever we’re discussing to present to the class.

In my documentary anthropology and creative ethnography course we practice digital photography, web design, radio-piece production, and video film production, all in the service of pursuing and presenting original ethnographic research inside and outside the classroom.

And even in cultural anthropology courses that are not specifically focusing on producing and presenting research, I use technology to enhance our learning experience. We’re able to analyze good examples of whatever we’re discussing—whether we navigate to an on-line site or video clip in class, or I bring in a clip, image, or sound file to play. And I do bring a great many digital files in to the classroom with a flash drive, CD, or iPod.

I’ll also use PowerPoint to assist in lecture at times, but actually not all that often unless I’m going to post the file on e-Reserves so students don’t have to spend the whole time transcribing the slides and can actually listen and think in the classroom too. I prefer the more active class participation in interactive lecture/discussion, even if it means that I have to do a lot of writing on the board. Don’t ask my students about my chalkboard artistic skills, however. My rendition of the California flag for a discussion on symbols last week was rather pathetic…

How do you integrate technology into the classroom?

I remember the old advice given to people preparing presentations for a talk or conference when the technological options were all rather new: don’t absolutely rely on the technology, just know your material well and have low or even no-tech alternatives available to help you convey it. And I think that remains great advice, even when potential technical difficulties may not be an issue.

Technology is a great tool for helping us achieve our goals, but it’s not the only way and shouldn’t rule the classroom even when we’re focusing on how to effectively use it. My goals of teaching critical thinking, cultural analysis, cross-cultural exploration, and effective communication remain paramount, and I integrate technology where it is useful to support these goals.

How are you using technology as a tool to achieving your teaching goals?

To reach students in interesting ways. And in production courses, students get to explore and use whatever technological tools may improve or help showcase the research they do. These are technological skills which are not only relevant for communicating about culture in anthropology, but applicable across fields and other situations students may find themselves in.

How do you see technology improving learning?

Everyone has different learning styles, and technology helps to expand the range of ways to meet student needs and interests. And taking learning beyond the bounds of the  conventional classroom into everyday life is ideal. 

Also in many ways the technology itself allows unique ways of interacting and understanding. You see more and differently when you look at your environment or yourself through the lens of a camera, for instance. Projected on a screen and framed in certain ways, things you had once thought fully known and familiar can be apprehended and appreciated in new ways. All this provokes new and useful ways to reflect about yourself and others in the social and physical environment.

How have your students responded to your use of technology?

Very well. Everyone seems to really enjoy audio-visual materials brought into the classroom by me, as well as the opportunity to bring in examples themselves. Although it can have its occasional hiccups and outages, Email communication is a great addition to facilitate student-professor contacts. And although not that many students use it on their own yet, I find Microsoft Word Reviewing a very convenient way to provide useful, speedy written feedback on essays students are revising for grant proposals, graduate school applications, thesis drafts, and what-not.

I threw the question open to some of my students, and here’s what a couple of them had to say:

“Use of technology is certainly positive. With a field such as documentary anthropology, technology is essential for not only successful fieldwork (filming, photography, interviewing, etc. etc. etc), but also a successful presentation of the fieldwork” (Gavin).

“I think it's been great. I really learned a lot throughout the class. While I didn't choose to use the facilities on campus to do my final editing I became more acquainted with the capabilities of my own PC which has been very fulfilling” (Janelle).

What does technology add that would not be possible without it?

Whole new creative outlets to communicate understandings between people.

What new goals do you have for using technology in teaching?

Continuing to expand the ways we can learn to document and communicate cultural understandings. I’d like to explore pod-casting opportunities with my students, for example.

How could the University better facilitate the use of technology in instruction?

Ah, wouldn’t it be wonderful to get an on-going infusion of resources to keep us current with available technologies and expand student and instructor knowledge about its use? Anyone out there interested in contributing?

What is your biggest challenge in using technology in the classroom?

This was actually more of a problem in the past, and I think the culture is catching up with it. But it used to be the case that students often passively accepted visual media, not responding with the same active, reflexive, and critical awareness they had learned to use with written materials. To some extent it may still be the case, but for the most part people no longer just switch into passive viewer mode to enjoy or absorb the story. Now they may be thinking about how it was created and put together, what biases and purposes its designers might have had, and how the story addresses and effects them. We’re not as naïve as we used to be—our cultures and our education have taught us to look behind the curtain. This is a good thing.

How are you using technology to transform your teaching?

Much richer examples! I don’t know if a picture is really worth a thousand words, but it certainly brings up a great many interesting questions to explore…

How are you using technology in interesting or unique ways?

What I really enjoy is letting students go out and explore technologies and bring back their insights and productions so that we can all learn from them.

Is there anything that you love about technology?

I appreciate a good story creatively told, in whatever combinations of media, art, and performance serve to evoke it.

How are you using technology in your daily life?

Where am I not using it? Electricity, personal computers, broadband connection, the internet, email, streaming video and music, stereo, video iPod, digital camera, non-digital cameras, video camera, cable phone, cell phone, digital storage devices, portable flash drives, cable television, printers, scanners, fax machines, electric and non-electric pencil sharpeners, energy-efficient vehicles, remote controls, car alarms, electric garage door openers, snow blower, lawn mower, heating, cooling, lighting technologies, microwave ovens, refrigerators and other efficient food storage and preparation technologies, vacuum cleaners, medical breakthroughs, better designed homes and figurative mousetraps, even a microchip in my dog who likes to wander…

If you had to pick one technology item that you couldn’t live without, what would it be?

I suppose my personal computer, as a link to so many other technologies and methods of communication with others.