Katz emphasizes a need for academic incentives that reward integrating technology, but sees a big disconnect at most institutions. Yet their efforts are not recognized or rewarded in most academic peer reviews or in promotion or tenure decisions. If you really want to influence behavior, you need to reward behaviors you claim to want. Failing that, you should not be surprised when people are not eager to do what you want them to do. Katz cautioned, however, against wasting time debating wherein using technology is by definition academically good and not using technology is bad.
Technologies also have a potential to alter the marketplace for education.
As these Web-savvy kids come of age and shop for universities, they will find plenty of alternatives. Their educational investments will be just as savvy, shying away from inferior programs. He sees technological competition molding new teaching models and rewarding those universities that adopt them. Current technologies give faculty the potential to develop a new type of relationship with their subject and their students, the increasingly sophisticated consumer. Dede agrees that technologically adept faculty will spark their colleagues to experiment with technology.