September 2007 — Policy/Advocacy
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Which Way, IT?
Traditionally charged with servicing infrastructure, technology departments are wrestling with how to manage a new role: supporting teaching and learning.
THERE I WAS, in Washington, DC, listening to some brilliant
people talk about technology and education, and not a
congressperson or staffer to be seen. I guess they all needed
a break from the DC heat and some time at home with the constituents.
I was there as a part of Campus Technology 2007,
our sister publication's 14th annual ed tech conference, along
with about 700 CIOs, CTOs, and other leaders in the higher
education community, as well as 80 technology companies
serving that community. I wish that some K-12 officials had
been there, in addition to members of Congress, as they would
have learned a lot. They still can—recordings of the sessions
are available here. (Click on the
Campus Technology 2007 button in the left navigation bar.)
One session was particularly impressive, not only for the subject matter, but also because of the implications it held for K-12 local policy and for the higher ed audience in attendance. Seventy-five minutes of fascinating dialogue was provided by Phillip Long, senior strategist for the Academic Computing Enterprise from MIT; Chris Dede, Timothy E. Wirth professor in learning technologies at Harvard University; and Joel Smith, vice provost and CIO at Carnegie Mellon University. A recurring theme took up the purpose of information technology in an age where, as Long stated, quoting Tony Driscoll of IBM, "world information will be doubling every 11 hours by 2010."
In this time of explosive change in the acquisition of knowledge and information, how will ed tech organizations cope? Dede said the key is to focus, not on what technology enables, but on the objectives you seek. After all, he said, channeling Yogi Berra, "If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there." Smith expressed a similar concern about focus when he said, "It's the pedagogy, stupid." Which was Smith's colorful way of saying that IT should be about improving teaching and learning.
However, Long noted that IT has traditionally been charged with deploying infrastructure, but not with understanding and applying principles of teaching and learning. Each of the three men discussed organizational changes—or lack thereof—that have been made at their respective institutions to account for IT's new dual and often shifting roles. Harvard remains in what Dede called the medieval stage; each college within the university has its own infrastructure. He even has to dip into his departmental funds to pay for a wiki powerful enough for his students to use. Carnegie Mellon's IT department keeps the support of teaching and learning separate from infrastructure, but both sectors report up through Smith's office to ensure there is appropriate coordination. Less than a year ago, MIT separated the two functions so that each had a champion to support it all the way to the top of the university.
