Now new technologies, such as interactive video, networking, and collaborative tools make possible new ways of teaching. With many experts available on the Internet, a student can develop a relationship with or get information from any one of them. New technologies free up faculty and students to talk to each other. Rote learning is relegated to an activity no longer requiring direct faculty supervision. Access to information, including lectures, is available at all hours.
Instructors take the role of coach and students can take more responsibility for their own learning.
Faculty are discovering that computing resources often enhance the learning environment. From their desks, faculty can write research papers, share files with a colleague in the next room or half way around the world. They can look up books on the shelf at the New School and other consortium libraries, or libraries in Chicago, California, France or Israel. They can search the Internet for existing papers on the demographics of today's college students from as close as Columbia University to as far away as Colombia, South America or China. Upon finding the source, if it is available in electronic form, it can be transferred back to an account at the New School.