The number one benefit of information technology is that it empowers people to do what they want to do. It lets people be creative. It lets people be productive. It lets people learn things they didn’t think they could learn before, and so in a sense it is all about potential. —Steve Ballmer, American businessman and former CEO of the Microsoft Corporation

Technology for College Learning

The technological advances across time in colleges are staggering. Just 100 years ago we had chalkboards, and today we have smart boards, online classes, blended learning, flipped classrooms, MOOCs, microlectures, and mobile learning. There are also blogs, wikis, podcasts, clickers, cloud computing, virtual reality and gaming. Students used to hand write, then type on a typewriter, then go no a computer lab and wait in line, but today we have laptops, tablets, smartphones, 3D printing, eye tracking, and LCD touch boards.

The invention of Apple, Microsoft, and the Internet, followed by the explosion of social networking sites, such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, Tumblr, Flickr, and Google+, have furthered changed the face of higher education. It’s no wonder that colleges and universities today place a heavy emphasis on teaching and learning with technology.

Consider the following statistics:

• 85 percent of college-bound students say technology in the classroom and the availability of online classes are their top determinants in choosing a college.^[1]
• One in every seven students studies exclusively online; more than one in four students takes at least one online course.
• Students favor laptops as their digital technology of choice. In a study conducted by Harris Poll for AMD (a technology company), 85 percent of study respondents said they own a laptop, which they use for taking notes, doing homework and projects, watching television shows and videos, and conducting other tasks. Forty-one percent of the AMD study respondents reported that they consider the laptop to be more important than a TV, bicycle, car, or tablet.^[2]
• Distance-education enrollments continue to grow.

Critical and Creative Thinking with Technology

Why is there such a powerful thrust behind technology in education? How significantly is technology contributing to our ability to be critical and creative thinkers? Technology by itself cannot create critical or creative thinkers, but when it’s used with the guidance of a teacher who understands how to use it and by students who have sufficient technology skills and resources to use it, the learning process can be considerably enhanced. The following are some ways in which technology can enrich education:

• Computer software and Internet resources allow students to record, defend, and challenge their thinking.
• Digital recording allow students to observe and analyze the world, to reimagine it in a way that appeals to them.
• Interactive whiteboards are helpful for class discussions; they facilitate whole-class display and hands-on participation.
• Student-response systems, like clickers, allow students to respond to questions and then debate the answers.
• Blogs can serve as personal journals to record, share, and reflect on field experiences and research activities. Students can also use blogs as a pre-established environment for critically responding to assigned readings.
• Wikis can help students coordinate, compile, synthesize, and present individual or group projects or research, as well as build and share group resources and knowledge. Wikis can also help students provide peer review, feedback, and critiques.
• Discussion boards help students establish a sense of community with their class and engage in ongoing threaded conversations on assigned readings and topics highlighting diverse points of view.

The following graphic illustrates how different digital technologies can help faculty and students with critical and creative thinking. Notice the six main categories in the graphic correspond with Bloom’s taxonomy.

The red and blue arrows outside the diagram indicate the fluidity with which the tools can travel through the different levels in the taxonomy. All in all, the diagram shows the interconnectedness of technology resources in helping users increase their critical and creative thinking skills.

Reading and Researching with Technology

In an online learning environment, you’re probably going to do more reading than listening. Reading online isn’t the same as reading in print, so it’s important to practice some strategies that will improve your online reading comprehension and speed. Below are two resources about online reading strategies that will help you use the Internet to find scholarly material and evaluate websites for accuracy, relevance, and other key considerations.

Resources

• Top 100 Tools for Learning
• Technology and the Classroom: MOOCs, Flipped Classrooms and Micro-lectures
• The Case Files: What College was Like Before Modern Technology