All the effort to create faster networks, provide more modern equipment, and more effective software will be of little value if the faculty and students can not get the support to help them use the available resources effectively. Instructional technology will play an increasingly important role in instruction at Brown and effective utilization of this technology will be essential to its successful use in instruction. To insure this, Brown needs to create a faculty development program that will disseminate knowledge about the way new technologies can support various teaching strategies and curricula, and develop the skills necessary to use this technology effectively. The purpose of this initiative is to create both awareness of and support for the use of technology in teaching. Increased support for instructional technology can be provided by continued development of instructional tools like the Course Publisher created by CIS this last year.
Stakeholders are the faculty who implement and the students who use instructional technology.
This is an ongoing program that has its own sense of priority driven by the faculty who are actively participating in using and developing instructional technology. Our task is to be prepared to support the faculty as they become interested and make the adoption of these new methods as easy and as effective as possible. What we don't want to do is discourage interested faculty members or become road blocks. Most of what is proposed here can be done without additional funding and the minigrants which are the major cost item can be reduced and still be effective. It is much more important to get started and provide encouragement than to fully fund this initiative.