You may enjoy these testimonies from three relatively new professors to Taylor regarding the academic technology support they have discovered at TU (it's one of those secrets we're trying to get out!):
Testimony 1 (Statistics): "From my first day as a faculty member at Taylor University, I've been impressed with the quality of support for academic technology. Most importantly, the ETC staff has appreciated my own goals for my own courses...and then they've proven able to assist me with software and hardware that advance those goals. Sometimes those resources have been resources they suggested and taught me how to use; other times those resources have been special-purpose tools that I need in my discipline and which the ETC has helped to set up. The ETC staff have all been readily available, hard-working, versatile, and flexible. They have also prodded me to enhance my own "toolbox" for instruction, e.g. using DyKnow in the classroom. I find the level of support for academic technology at Taylor University to be far better than what I've experienced at a similar Christian College or at a larger state university."
Testimony 2 (Music): "Even during the interview process it was apparent that Taylor University was interested and intentional about implementing technology in the classroom to better engage student learning. I fretted about actually learning enough about PowerPoint to make a decent presentation! Thankfully, support abounds for the entire campus community to utilize the great resources that abound including the ETC, IT support staff, mini-grant opportunities, workshops and the like. In comparison to my previous (and wonderful) university where one projection unit was available in the entire Fine Arts department, Taylor is certainly a leader in advocacy for the exciting use of technology in higher learning."
Testimony 3 (Mathematics): "Taylor's academic technology support from the ETC has been, in my opinion, stellar in several ways:
1. They are proactive and aggressive in outfitting classrooms with educational technology hardware.
2. They are likewise proactive and aggressive in purchasing and supporting innovative educational software, such as DyKnow Vision and Turning Point.
3. They are wonderfully responsive to problems, questions and issues that arise with both the hardware and the software.
4. They are actively involved in workshops, grant programs, blogs and other means of encouraging faculty to innovate with technology in teaching.
5. They are responsive to faculty ideas about new technologies and new uses for existing technologies. In particular, they understand and support when faculty desire to use technology for student engagement and interaction rather than merely for better faculty presentation.
I recently spent a sabbatical year at a top-tier public research university and was surprised to find that the educational technology that is ubiquitous in Taylor's classrooms was rare to find there. At Taylor I can teach using pen-based technology and easily project my work on a screen in any classroom. There I had to borrow a portable projector, which I took with me to class every day in order to project my (Taylor-provided!) Tablet PC to the class."
This fall 20 faculty and nearly 40% of the student body are using the
Second Life, podcasting, social networking, Web 2.0 ... What does it all mean? Where are we being taken? How do I deal with these overwhelming technologies as an educator? as a Christian?
Here is an article in yesterday's Marion Chronicle Tribune on our Aug 16 & 17 "T for T" Conference. 

Sometimes the "expert" appears as stumped as the professor :)
My colleague, Leon, and I have been experimenting with
This will stretch your thinking. Ohio University has created a campus in Second Life. Take a look at their
A recent article in 

Daniel Brunner (George Fox Evangelical Seminary) wrote an excellent article, Using "Hybrid" Effectively in Christian Higher Education, published in the Winter 2007
Jack Meacham, SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor, writes a provocative article "

I'm at the
Several of our TU faculty are beginning to experiment with the podcasting of lecture material. Kanas State University has announced plans to convert some 6,000 course recordings into "enhanced podcasts" that combine audio with slides and annotation. Many classes are now set up to automatically record lectures and convert them to an iPod-friendly format.
For the past three years we have scheduled each month a 4th Thursday "Successful Teaching" Workshop for our faculty, from 8-10 am. It includes breakfast followed by a 90-minute workshop on technologies related to teaching & learning.
University uses iPods in the Classroom
Will Richardson in his book
For the Taylor University faculty you will come back to some beautifully rennovated facilities. The Language Lab has a new look, with a counter (for 24 new computers running the Edutronix Genesis software) running along the outside of the room and an inside U-shaped table for when the instructor directs the students to swing their chairs around for class activities.
I'm in Toronto at my 35th high school class reunion. My 50 classmates from
My future son-in-law came home today from his class at Ball State talking about the latest cheating technique. Kids are bringing their cell picture-phones to class, photographing their answers and sending them to each other during the test.
As you know, one of my projects this summer has been to play with (or should I say "research, analyze, and assess"?) the various digital tools young people are using today. Much of what I am learning will be presented in various workshops at our 4th annual "Technology for Teaching" Conference to be held the week before the start of school. 

I was talking with one of our professors yesterday in the ETC and he asked the question, "Isn't one of the differences between us and the Millennials is that they have time to play with all of these tools?" We talked about the load that faculty carry, leaving little time to experiment and simply "play" with technology. I wish we had a way to lighten this load, to provide an hour or two release time each year for this purpose.
This week a friend (thanks KM) sent me this interesting article in Campus Technology, 





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