Work And Technology In Higher Education

This book explores college students’ lived experiences of using digital technologies for their academic work. Access to and use of digital technologies is an integral aspect of higher education in the twenty-first century. However, despite the tech-savvy image of them propagated by the media, not all college students own and use technology to the same extent. To ensure that students have the best opportunities for success, all in higher education must consider ways to increase affordances and reduce barriers in student technology use. This book explicitly examines urban commuter students’ use of digital technologies for academic work, on and off campus.

Institutions of higher learning rely heavily on technological innovation to effectively deliver educational services and provide students with a quality experience. Thus, the ability of leaders and administrators at these institutions to produce effective policy and to innovate in an evolving world hinges on successfully applying technological solutions to everyday challenges facing their college or university. Cases on Technologies for Educational Leadership and Administration in Higher Education brings together a collection of practical case studies exploring the application of new technologies, such as student management systems and enterprise resource planning, along with strategies that educational leaders can use to foster organizational change. Targeted toward college and university administrators and leaders, this book discusses successful strategies for managing universities in the tech-savvy 21st century.

This book examines key issues at the intersection of education and technology by addressing the question that most educators face—how do we use technology to engage students in the learning process and enhance learning? Problematizing the view that technology is the default solution to a host of problems facing education, while also recognizing that technology has an important place in a variety of education levels, the book provides readers with clear insights on technology and learning from a variety of perspectives from communication studies, education, and related disciplines. This volume is an essential read for scholars and teachers working in the area of elementary education. It will also be of interest to academics working in the area of education, postsecondary education, and learning and can be used as an ancillary text in graduate-level seminars.

Since the early 1980s, U.S. colleges and universities have become extremely important not only as computational research and development centers, but also as field sites for examining the relationship between technological innovation and sociocultural change. In spite of this, neither academic analysts of technological change nor the broader audience of computer professionals have a full understanding of higher education's catalytic role in shaping the so-called microcomputer revolution. This volume makes a major contribution to that understanding. In contrast to previous publications about computers in higher education -- most of which focus narrowly on technology deployment, use, and management strategies -- this volume takes a comprehensive look at academic computing as a sociocultural phenomenon. Conceptually and methodologically unique, it is the only collection of in-depth, mainly ethnographic studies of the "academic computing revolution" -- its consequences, meanings, and significance. Most of the contributors are university-based social scientists who have been at the forefront of studying computing in higher education, beginning over a decade ago. The volume consists of a series of case studies, developed during years of careful fieldwork and analysis, that document the open-ended, socially constructed, interpretively flexible character of computer-mediated academic work. Drawing on core ideas of cultural anthropology, interpretive sociology, and the social construction of technology, this book also makes a contribution to the growing, multidisciplinary study of technology and society. Work and Technology in Higher Educationwill inform not only educators and social scientists interested in computing and technology studies, but also academic administrators who want to understand the sociocultural context of technological change as a basis for better decision making.

Educational systems worldwide are facing an enormous shift as a result of sociocultural, political, economic, and technological changes. The technologies and practices that have developed over the last decade have been heralded as opportunities to transform both online and traditional education systems. While proponents of these new ideas often postulate that they have the potential to address the educational problems facing both students and institutions and that they could provide an opportunity to rethink the ways that education is organized and enacted, there is little evidence of emerging technologies and practices in use in online education. Because researchers and practitioners interested in these possibilities often reside in various disciplines and academic departments the sharing and dissemination of their work across often rigid boundaries is a formidable task. Contributors to Emergence and Innovation in Digital Learning include individuals who are shaping the future of online learning with their innovative applications and investigations on the impact of issues such as openness, analytics, MOOCs, and social media. Building on work first published in Emerging Technologies in Distance Education, the contributors to this collection harness the dispersed knowledge in online education to provide a one-stop locale for work on emergent approaches in the field. Their conclusions will influence the adoption and success of these approaches to education and will enable researchers and practitioners to conceptualize, critique, and enhance their understanding of the foundations and applications of new technologies.

Universities today are faced with difficult decisions about how to integrate technology into their curriculum. Rather than merely offering advice on the applications of technology to teaching, this book provides a pedagogical foundation for decisions about and use of technology within the curriculum.

Universities continue to struggle in their efforts to fully integrate information and communications technology within their activities. Based on examination of current practices in technology integration at 25 universities worldwide, this book argues for a radical approach to the management of technology in higher education. It offers recommendations for improving governance, strategic planning, integration of administrative and teaching services, management of digital resources, and training of technology managers and administrators. The book is written for anyone wanting to ensure technology is integrated as effectively and efficiently as possible.

Academic work, like many other professional occupations, has increasingly become digitised. This book brings together leading scholars who examine the impacts, possibilities, politics and drawbacks of working in the contemporary university, using digital technologies. Contributors take a critical perspective in identifying the implications of digitisation for the future of higher education, academic publishing protocols and platforms and academic employment conditions, the ways in which academics engage in their everyday work and as public scholars and relationships with students and other academics. The book includes accounts of using digital media and technologies as part of academic practice across teaching, research administration and scholarship endeavours, as well as theoretical perspectives. The contributors span the spectrum of early to established career academics and are based in education, research administration, sociology, digital humanities, media and communication.