DIGITAL U; How Technology Transforms the College Experience

iPods. Cell phones. Laptops. Oh my!
Welcome to Digital University, where technology has transformed college campuses by reaching into classrooms and dorm rooms to become an integral part of the college experience for students and faculty.

The evolution of technology has made college students the masters of multitasking. They easily balance talking on their cell phones while sending e-mail from their laptops with their iPods playing their favorite tunes in the background. And don’t forget that the television is likely on and they might be watching CNN to catch the latest in current events.

“Almost everyone is now constantly connected. They are constantly connected to other people, constantly connected to information,” said Diana Oblinger, a vice president with EDUCAUSE, a nonprofit group focusing on higher education and technology.

Students use technology to set up class schedules, complete and submit homework, and pay for snacks from the vending machine. They use iPods or MP3 players to bring their favorite music wherever they go, and cell phones ensure they are never farther away than a phone call or text message.

Faculty members use technology to enhance their teaching, track their students’ progress and educate students they might never meet face-to-face.

“It’s unbelievable how helpful it is,” said Walid Shayya, an associate professor in the department of agricultural engineering at Morrisville State College. “You’ve got more tools at your disposal.” Shayya said technology can enhance the classroom experience. He uses a variety of teaching methods, from working out problems manually in front of the classroom to having students use laptops to quickly perform calculations.

Oblinger said using computers in the classroom helps students understand complex material.

“Just think about a graph and being able to move an axis one direction or the other, or change the slope of a line by playing with it. You deepen your understanding of what’s going on,” Oblinger said.

Morrisville, through a partnership with IBM, in 1998 began offering students the opportunity to purchase laptops, and many Morrisville faculty now integrate laptop use into their classrooms.

Shayya said that students using laptops in class can get distracted with instant messaging, e-mail or the Internet, but the key is to be vigilant and balance the use of computers with other teaching methods.

Eric Kuhn, a Hamilton College sophomore, said if during class he gets an important e-mail, he’ll respond. He e-mails using his cell phone.

“I can e-mail through an entire class and tell you everything that professor said,” Kuhn said, and then quickly added: “I don’t do that.”

Learning goes on everywhere
With wireless access to the Internet ubiquitous, every corner of a campus can be a place of learning. The result has been that students stopped using their computers in the isolation of their dorm room or a computer lab, said Jean Boland, Morrisville’s vice president for information technology services.

Morrisville went wireless in 1999, and students with laptops gather in building lobbies, the dining hall or the college’s Internet cafe, Boland said.

Oblinger said this mobility and quick access to information on the Web has changed many campus libraries from a place of silence to a meeting place.

Michele Meyer, an Ithaca College junior, said she brings her laptop to the library to do work. But sometimes she uses it to watch her favorite television shows posted online. The Internet connection at the library is faster than in her dorm room, she said.

And at most libraries, gone are the days of students smuggling food or drink inside. Many campus libraries now have cafes. Suzanne Thorin, Syracuse University’s University Librarian and Dean of the Library, said SU is planning to open a cafe this summer.

“When you think about the fact that people check out books and take them home and read them in the bathtub, or on a table with a peanut butter sandwich ... it isn’t really reasonable to think that people can’t eat in a place that is really quite like when you check them out and take them home,” she said.

Despite the wealth of information on the Web, campus libraries are still used as a research resource, Thorin said. She recently found herself turning to books when researching Melvin Dewey, the creator of the book classification system called the Dewey Decimal System.

“I ended up crawling around the stacks and pulling out materials,” Thorin said. “There was just practically nothing (on the Internet) ... It was interesting because the richness of what I found out about him was in books.”

An iPod in every ear
As students prepare for the academic year, electronics purchases are high on their list. Students and their parents getting ready for the current academic year were estimated to spend about $10.46 billion on electronics purchases, a 27.5 percent increase over last year’s projections, according to the 2006 National Retail Federation’s Back-to-College Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey. The survey polled 8,529 consumers Aug. 2-9.

Cell phones, iPods and laptops are standard purchases for many students.

“You have to have an iPod of one sort or the other,” Kuhn said.

Kuhn, who is interning in Washington, D.C., this semester, listens to his iPod while he checks his e-mail during his commute on the train. He also listens to it at the gym on the treadmill while he is watching television and talking or e-mailing on his cell phone.

Some universities have embraced the iPod craze.

Colgate University created Colgate Conversations, a podcast series that features faculty, alumni, administrators and students talking about research projects, higher education issues, careers and life on campus.

“The technology has just exploded. Everyone has the iPods attached to the earbuds in their ears as they’re walking around campus,” said Tim O’Keeffe, Colgate’s director of Web content.

People like the ability to download information to an iPod and listen to it whenever they want, O’Keeffe said. About 1,200 people have subscribed to Colgate’s page on the Apple iTunes Web site. And that doesn’t include people who have downloaded one or two segments of Colgate Conversations instead of subscribing to the series, he said.

Podcasting also lets faculty and students create assignments in a new way, said Greg Ketcham, who manages online learning at the State University College at Oswego. It could be used for public speaking courses or foreign language courses, he said.

“You can quickly correct the pronunciation or the grammar,” he said. College Web sites are critical

The blog bonanza and online journals also have caught the attention of many faculty and students, and now some universities are promoting them. Hamilton and Colgate are two local institutions that have links on their Web sites to student blogs and journals, where select students write about their college experiences. The universities like highlighting them because they give perspective students a look into student life, O’Keeffe said.

The setup of a college Web site and easy access to information on it are important, said Arthur Szu-tu, Onondaga Community College’s chief information officer. Web sites offer people unfamiliar with the college a chance to get to know it.

“It embodies the image of the college,” Szu-tu said.

If a Web site is difficult to navigate, people won’t use it and could be left with a bad impression of the college, he said.

A college Web site can be a great resource for students. From most college Web sites, students can register for courses (no more waiting in long lines), request transcripts and pay their college bills.

“There are just tons of ways that students are capitalizing on (technology) in terms of convenience,” Oblinger said.

Take, for example, the dreaded chore of laundry. Several local campuses, including Ithaca College and the State University College at Cortland, use an online system that lets students see which washers and dryers are in use and how much time is left in their cycles. The system sends alerts to students’ computers so students can monitor the laundry rooms from their rooms.

Meyer, the Ithaca junior, last year played the guessing game when trying to find an available washer or dryer. Now, with Ithaca’s new laundry alert system, she waits for the computer alert to let her know.

“You can get a lot more done,” she said, talking on her cell phone as she walked across campus.

Dorms rip out landlines
Most college students have cell phones and many have owned one for several years. Meyer first got one when she was in seventh grade.

Morrisville recognized that students preferred cell phones and ripped out the telephone landlines in its residence halls. In fall 2003, the college gave every residential student a cell phone.

“Dorm room phones you could try over and over, but students just aren’t in their dorms,” Boland said.

And cell phones are used for more than just phone calls. Text messaging, Internet access and photography are just a few of the phone functions students use.

“A picture sent over a cell phone says, ‘I’m having a good time and these are the people I’m with. This is where I am. Why don’t you come join me?’” said Oblinger, the EDUCAUSE vice president.

Technology has not only enhanced the overall college experience, but it has increased access to higher education for students with disabilities, said Roger Purdy, Le Moyne College’s director of disability support services.

Software enlarges text on computer screens or converts text into an audio file for students who are visually impaired.

For students who are unable to use a keyboard, there is voice recognition software that allows students to speak and have their words converted into computer text.

And the technology is becoming more economical and easy to use, Purdy said. He cited the evolution of the Kurzweil Reading Machine, which scans text and converts it into speech. About 20 years ago, the machine stood about 3 feet high, 3 feet wide and cost about $25,000, Purdy said. Then it became a desktop box costing about $10,000, he said. Now there is computer software that costs about $2,000 that does the same thing, Purdy said.

“It’s just amazing,” Purdy said.

Many students don’t think of the technology around them as amazing. For them, it’s just a way of life.

“We grew up in an age where at any given minute — any given second — you can text message, you can IM, you can listen to the television, the radio and something on YouTube and you can shoot an e-mail and listen to a professor and you retain all that information,” said Kuhn, the Hamilton sophomore. “I think that’s the most important thing, is you can do it all.”