For example, instead of purchasing textbooks or traveling to the library to find a particular book is checked out, a student can find many online texts from The Song of Roland to On Walden Pond.
The use of technologies like the Internet has also enabled many instructors to enrich the curriculum and enhance the exchange and discussion between them and students. For example, at some medical colleges students are able to watch live surgery via satellite videoconferencing. At other colleges, art students are able to travel to museums around the world to see three-dimensional representations of famous works of art. Professors are able to craft complex lesson plans and keep them online so they only require slight modification when the time comes to change them. For many years instructors were ambivalent, resistant or outright opposed to the use of technology in higher learning. However, the nature of resistance has changed due to the increased use of technology at institutions of higher learning around the world. Whereas resistance from instructors used to be aimed at the technology itself, today's resistance deals more with administration support and issues like copyright protection. As Rickard notes in Educom Review, "Where once faculty resistance could be characterized by Šplain old fear - This is a fad; it may go away; I'd like to retire before I have to confront it,' today the resistance can be characterized by a lack of faith that institutions are supporting faculty in their efforts to transform learning through information technology" (42-43).
Despite the numerous benefits that can accrue to instructors and students from the use of technology, there are definite obstacles, challenges, and even negatives that result from its use. In a comprehensive study of higher education instruction relying on Internet use, Piotrowski and Vodanovich argue that shortcomings and obstacles include: lack of privacy issues, poor/limited in...
Benifits of Technology in Higher Education. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 19:23, February 26, 2015, from http://www.collegetermpapers.com/viewpaper/1303785391.html