Rebecca Barr and I published an article in The Community College Review. In it we looked at curriculum and planning at a community college, focusing on the strategies employed by vocational and arts and letters instructors. While up front planning has always been important to educators, it is even more critical today, five years later.
Technology is almost too good for our own good.
Both potent and seductive, technology can lure instructors towards it, allowing them to be distracted from their ongoing and pivotal role in education and performance improvement. Threaded discussions is an example that comes to mind. I was immediately attracted to the opportunities afforded for continuous reflection, discussion, and community building. In my initial view, all I needed to do was to seed the discussion with questions, a case, or a problem, and my graduate students in educational technology would do the rest. Not only do my students haltingly participate, and they're not the only ones, they don't like it unless they are truly geographically distant.