4. Preparation of Professorate. (Teaching and Learning in the New Millennium: Transformative Technologies in a Transformable World‪.‬

Our understanding of how secondary schools make use of these technologies helps us understand how post-secondary institutions may do so. Already, secondary schools augment their courses through the inclusion of instructional technology templates like Blackboard and WebCT, and some, like the Florida Virtual School and the Wichita Public Schools (Morris, 2001) have teamed with parents interested in home schooling to provide a cohesive academic program within an e-learning community environment. The instructors trained in the technologies, however, may not have any idea about how to transfer technical ability into sound pedagogy. In fact, even as late as 2001, the training received by secondary school faculty indicates that the institutional visions of the schools respond inadequately to the social realities of the community. "In the latest Quality Education Data study," according to Levinson and Grohe (2001, February), "80% of teachers now use the Internet for evaluating curriculum materials, but only 18% of teachers indicated that using the Internet changed the way they teach." If the technologies are not transformative, then there is no point in spending $18,000 to equip a classroom when a $59 overhead projector will suffice. Teachers in the secondary schools have one thing going for them that teachers in the post-secondary institutions may not have, and that is a parallel degree in educational theory and practice. For this reason, post-secondary instructors may approach their classrooms from a pedagogical perspective (i.e., the lecture method) that precludes their ability to adapt readily to new teaching and learning environments. It is a truism in education that before teachers can effectively teach, they have to be familiar with the media through which they teach regardless of how well they understand their material. In the past, teachers expected face-to-face instruction through the institutional environment of a classroom setting in which the teacher stood before two or three dozen students who took notes or engaged in classroom activities. This medium of exchange had its various permutations, but it was the primary medium for both kinds of teachers--those who were teachers first and found a subject through which they could engage student learning, and those who were researchers first and found themselves confronted with a classroom of students at the institution that employed them. The new technologies created alternative media through which teachers could engage their students, and the early adopters discovered a variety of ways in which these technologies could provide useful methods for transforming teaching and learning environments. Of course, not all of them discovered these methods at once or had disciplines that seemed as conducive to their use as others. In order for many faculty members to make use of these technologies, in fact, they have to first have a use for them. This is where the instructional technologist comes in, for not all faculty members can divide their time between teaching their courses and learning appropriate technologies that complement their pedagogical goals. A great deal of teacher resistance, moreover, has come out of their not knowing how their technologies can be helpful to them in the classroom and from fear of having to start over in their understanding of classroom pedagogy.