Fall 1999
Vol 8 Issue 1
IN THIS ISSUE...
Technology: Places for Student Voices
Assisting Student Learning with Technology
Technology and Computers- More than Just Classroom Learning
Laptops, Websites, and Angkor-Wat
Ten Years of Student Voices on the Electronic Forum
Learning, Programming and Moving On at MCLI
Learning that Provides a Direction for the Future
Are We Listening to International Students
Hands-On Experience, Service Learning Makes it Real at MCC's Network Academy
SEE ALSO...
The Forum
Assidere
Maricopa Center for Learning and Instruction
Assisting Student Learning with Technology
Richard Effland, MCC
I have been involved with the use of technology in assisting student learning now for nearly seven years. In that time I have encountered student creativity that made me admire the capacities for learning when students are given freedoms not normally considered. We still use several learning modules that were designed and created by students. The pedagogical insights of former students such as Linda Trujillo have few parallels in more traditional settings where students are not the center of learning. I have been asked to introduce two of my former students. It is a pleasure to have known them not only as students but also as fellow learners.
The first student is Jim Jacobs. Jim has a worldly base of life experience that few students will ever have. He has a passion for anthropology and archaelology. He walked into my life knowing things I did not, and he freely shared his insights, not only me, but to his fellow classmates. I did not "turn" Jim onto technology, but rather probably channeled some of his abilities and talents by the use of technology in my classes. During his encounter with my approach to teaching and learning he quickly embraced the technology and flourished in this environment. Further, he adapted to the "html" world and soon was creating his own web pages and then web areas. He then shared those with students as links from my own web areas. When we began the Student Technology Assistant (STA) program at MCC, Jim was there, and he was applying for this position. His service to the Life Science Department was a good model of how the STA program could benefit faculty.
The second student writer is David Jannosy. David entered my Honors class for ASB222 "Buried Cities and Lost Tribes" a bit lost and hard to figure out. This was an Honors-only class devoted to creativity. The class was to define and build a web project. It was interesting to see David develop within the semester and become a leader who took responsibility to build the actual framework for the project. I did not know how he was doing some things, and sometimes I looked at the end product with a sense of mystery because one could not follow much of the pages' logical flow. Yet in the end, the class looked up to David as their leader, and he stepped forward to pull it together. Unlike Jim, David was slow to get into the STA program because he procrastinated. However today, he is one of the longest surviving STAs in the program. I have seen him mature and grow in a special way.
Neither Jim nor David is like the student I first encountered. They have become masters of technology in their own ways. Perhaps the nicest by-product of thier achievements in my classes is that they have helped others become more technogically literate. They have taught me along with other students, and I am the one who now realizes the real reward as a teacher.