I was asked by a reporter to comment on technology classrooms – my response got a little long so I figured I would put it here to keep it.

Technology in The Classroom
Do you think you can just comment on the importance of technology in today’s university classrooms? Just a couple of highlights on the topic would be greatly appreciated.
I have been involved in technology in the classroom from many perspectives – currently I am teaching and using the technology. In previous periods of my career I have been a technology developer and a technology deployer.
My comments below are from the perspective of a teacher.
At some level, the reason that we all invest in improving technology in classrooms is to improve teaching. However just installing the technology is not sufficient – teachers much choose to use new classroom technology and then find ways to improve their teaching using the new technology.
The problem is that for a teacher to figure out how to best use a new technology they must be able to experiment with it and then begin to depend on it – and then begin to change their teaching based on how the technology allows them to teach better. Depending on a technology is a big deal – because once you integrate a technology into your teaching – the student experience suffers when that technology is not there or fails somehow – teachers who try a new technology and depend on it – quickly retreat when the technology lets them down.
So I will talk about three categories of classroom technology starting with essential features that I cannot teach without and moving to things I dream about in a classroom.
The Essentials
The first category of technologies if the ones that I found in most classrooms and have come to depend on and have fully integrated into my teaching approach.
A reliable projector is a must – this is obvious. If I go into a classroom without a projector – my teaching effectiveness drops about 70% immediately. Things like having an old projector not capable of displaying 1024×768 or greater has a negative impact on my teaching. I recently went into a class and the projector was not displaying red – my slides are very colorful and the color delivers semantic meaning on my slides – so even losing one color had an impact on the student’s experience. Good lighting and lighting control is also important – you need to be able to block out the sun so students can see the slides. You also need to be able to light different parts of the rooms differently.
The second most essential element in a classroom is good audio. Increasingly I use short video clips and recorded materials to enhance my teaching. I have gone so far as to pre-record some of my lectures and play them back in short segments during class – allowing the students to stop the lecture to ask me questions just like it was a real lecture. Then after class the students get the same lecture as a podcast – but without the interruptions for review and study. This is now my approach in many classes – it simply will not work in a room without high quality audio throughout. So now I depend on good audio.
A whiteboard that is not hidden by the screen is very important as it allows and hoc questions without disrupting the flow of the slides and allows ancillary material to be presented near the slide material.
Interestingly most of the podiums I encounter always show the podium computer display instead of simply mirroring what is on the projectors. So I end up looking over my shoulder all the time to manipulate my mouse. The podium display should always mirror the projector – sadly there are often little technical issues which happen when the podium display mirrors the projector display.
Emerging Technologies
The second category of technologies are ones that I see coming and find interesting and might experiment with – but am not ready to depend on and integrate deeply into my teaching approach.
Computers in the Podium – I generally do not like to depend on the podium computer at all. Usually podium computers have a really localized software install, and you need some local account from the local IT folks to use it, and you cannot install software on it. I only assume that these computers have a working web browser and can display PowerPoint in an emergency – not much else. The podium computers provide an important function – but not one that changes my teaching because I cannot count on them. Of course it is important to note that I teach software, technology and web development – so I am a pretty demanding customer :)
Computers in the Podium with pens to annotate the screens. Increasingly podium computers have really nifty tablet style screens that allows one to annotate the screens. I *love* to annotate my screens – I use OminDazzle for the Macintosh and *love* it. But as I am not much a fan of podium computers I cannot use these screens. I actually wish that I could plug those tablet screens into *my* computer and use them for my computer rather than the podium computers – because then I could reduce the risk that the podium computer won’t work for my purposes. For people with Windows tablet PC’s they already have this capability – it is sadly missing for Apple Laptops and I must use my mouse for annotation – ick.
Two projectors in a room – I am starting to see more larger rooms with two projectors – I have not yet found a way to change my teaching to take advantage of this. It is still quicker for me to switch what I am showing on a single display. However, when I am working intensely, I really like to have a lot of screen real estate and multiple displays might be quite nice – it would be really nice if I could drive both projectors from a single keyboard – this requires a desktop – not a laptop. This also requires a podium where I can see both displays at the same time without having to look over my shoulder and move the mouse. I am sure that two displays is very useful for classes where there is commonly discussion about a photo – such as art or biology – but for me – I just want them to be “more screen real estate”.
Dinner Theater Room layout – This is not exactly a technology – but it is wonderful so I want to mention it. My favorite room on campus holds about 40 students seated at four person tables with plenty of space between tables to move around – I can get to any student to help without crawling over another student.
Computers on desks have become a complete waste of space. The best rooms that want to be used for technology courses have laptops in the room in a locked cabinet. This way, for the few students who don’t have a laptop or for a student that forgets their laptop, I can open a cabinet and hand them a laptop for use during class – this is outstanding. However – of course – I cannot install software on these laptops. I would like to see a way that we could use remote desktop software to allow these portables to work in a software environment that I maintain. If I am teaching a Java programming class – I have software the students need to use.
Dream Technologies
Thee are a few technologies that I generally do not see in classrooms but would really like to see.
Remote access – I would like to be able to teach my courses remotely while I am traveling. I would also like to have guest lecturers in my classes from far away. And I would like to be able to record my guest lecturers for later viewing by the class. I am not yet sure the right approach in terms of software for this. It is important that my guest lecturers do not have to install software on their end – this suggests the use of Skype, Gizmo, or iChat Theater (or any of the above). Other than software, the biggest problem is a microphone so that there can be interactive discussions. I think that we should explore equipping professors with Polycom microphones to begin to experiment with this approach. This might be something to make work nicely in a dedicated podium system – including having the microphone properly connected and everything balanced out so it works well.
Lecture recording and archive – I have always wished for a way to record lectures in a simple ad hoc manner. Unfortunately no simple solution for this exists that is reliable and non-intrusive. My current workaround is to record audio – only with a USB MP3 player with audio recording support. Sansa makes a number of these which are simple and very good. They are simple to use and quite reliable and completely under the control of the instructor – and I can use them in any lecture setting.