E-learn Weblog of Willem van Valkenburg

New technologies present a much more complex environment for instructors to navigate. Instructors need to balance intense teaching, research and publishing loads with staying abreast of advancements in their respective fields. At least initially, any new technology is often "yet another thing" to have to find time for.

David R. Johnson published a report about this. The report includes interviews with more than 40 professors at three universities. It suggests that professors often use such technologies for logistical purposes rather than to improve learning:

Scholarship on technological change in academe suggests that the adoption of instructional technologies will erode professional control. Researchers have documented the pervasiveness of new technologies, but neither demonstrate how technological change is experienced by faculty nor collect data that permit assessment of consequences for professional control. Drawing on a sample of interviews with forty-two professors at three research-intensive universities, this research makes two contributions to existing research. First, in contrast to existing depictions of technological change in higher education, the findings reveals that academics perceive instructional technologies to have limited value in enhancing education and that technology use is rarely motivated by pedagogical innovation. Second, the study suggests that a relationship between technological change and ‘‘unbundling’’ of the academic role may be overstated. These data indicate that technological change threatens professional autonomy through exclusion from decision-making processes, increased workloads, and delimited teaching and research roles.

The report is interested to read if you are involved in the implementation and use of ICT in education.