Randy Lisk

Community college in Southeast U.S.

Faculty is ethnically and racially diverse

Nearly equal numbers of male & female professors

College has good professor retention rate

A significant population of instructors at this community college express frustration when attempting to operate multi-media equipment and create an inordinate amount of service requests that are easily remedied.

Instructors should be able to identify simple solutions before requesting service from the technical support staff.

Survey of Multi-Media skills measured instructor “comfort level” of classroom technology

Eligibility for survey include all full-time and adjunct faculty (tenured or non-tenured)

Excludes training staff, continuing ed. instructors, etc.

Qualified participants have unlimited access to multi-media devices and technical support.

328 of 400 professors returned survey

54.3% of professors do not attempt to identify the problem.

Most common failures during class are projectors and computers

Most confusing device is the projector

91.5% would attend training sessions designed to improve their multi-media skills

Studies indicate over 80% of some teachers receive less then 10 hours per year in technology training.

Concept of “self-efficacy” or development of a technological vision is encouraged.

Also called a PTIP; a Personal Technology Improvement Plan.

Workshops are principle forms of remediating technological shortcomings.

Some workshops are available on-line and for free; others sponsored through Professional Development or county agencies.

Funding sources are available for those who are technologically adept, but have insufficient resources to put their knowledge into practice.

Workshops have been developed and include:

Basic troubleshooting skills

Video editing and web publication skills

Basic accessibility options for disabled students

Principles of device operation

Creating accurate HelpDesk tickets

Identify multi-media items and functions

Learn how to produce simple videos and how to publish them

Set up an Internet domain name and learn web page authoring software

Introduce adaptive technologies to help disability students

Understand functions of cables, rectify simple problems