PULLMAN – The technology wing of Jeff Records’ life is significant. He has computers, both desktop and laptop. He’s got a digital camera and cell phone, a PDA and a digital video recorder.
Almost all of it, he says, could be used in one way or another as part of his class work at Washington State University.
“Pretty much everything but the Xbox,” said Records, a junior from Montesano.
For his generation of students, technology is deeply fixed to the college experience. Most classes now have some kind of online component, whether it’s a quiz or discussion thread or e-texts, and classroom uses of the Internet are steadily expanding.
Most recently, collaborative programs such as Web logs and online databases known as “wikis,” are offering the potential to revolutionize the way students learn, breaking down barriers between classes and disciplines, and democratizing the learning process, said Barbara Monroe, a WSU professor of English who researches teaching with technology.
“What’s different now from even three years ago,” she said, “is there’s been this surge in social software.”
WSU is now launching a university wiki, a communal Web site in which people can add material and edit entries as well as a database intended to help create communities among incoming freshmen.
By launching its first wikis, WSU is at the front of a technological trend.
At some universities, professors have used wikis to host ongoing conversations and debates about works of literature. Others have students post their work online so others can critique or react to it.
The brisk pace of technology is nothing new. Still, if you’ve not been on a college campus for several years, you might be surprised. No one registers for classes in person anymore; those lines are left only in the memories of parents. Book purchases, financial aid, transcripts and almost every university function is done online. A student might read e-text versions of Shakespeare’s sonnets or Darwin’s “The Origin of Species.” And students want, and typically get, online access nearly everywhere.
“When the Internet goes down, people get stressed about it,” said Heather Dickerson, a 19-year-old sophomore at WSU, “because everything you have to do is online.”
The modern campus is a sea of technology. Student unions are filled with students intent on their wireless-connected laptops. The number of tasks that can be done on handheld devices from taking notes to checking e-mail has exploded. Some universities are trying to plug lectures and other information into podcasts that can be played anytime on iPods and other MP3 players.
In the space of a decade, technology has remade the way students live.
“Before, you always had to go find the information,” said Antony Opheim, the University of Idaho’s associate director of technology development and network systems. “You went to the library. Where is research done? In the library. Now students want it available at Starbucks or on the Admin lawn.
“Students now don’t think of it as a luxury.”
In a warren of cubicles tucked under Martin Stadium on the WSU campus, the workers at Student Computing Services answered hundreds of calls last week from students returning to campus.
The department, which is virtually entirely student-staffed, helps students get connected in a variety of ways producing the “magic CD” that helps scour incoming computers for viruses, answering help desk questions and running student labs.
Getting tech-ready was among the top priorities for everyone before the start of classes.
“The professors expect that all these students will have instant e-mail, instant access and can go right to work on the first day of classes,” said George Ball, computing services director.
The influx of tens of thousands of new computers all connecting to a single network also makes universities particularly ripe for viruses and other security problems.
“Last fall we had virus storms like crazy,” said Ball.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
