Chapter 8

Publishers’ Technologies and Their Impact on Higher Education

Virginia Jones

Technology use in education has a long history of rapid deployment with subsequent disappointment in revolutionizing learning. Today’s learners are the most digitally connected of any learners thus far in the educational arena. Today’s educators, while embracing certain technologies, undervalue recognition of newer technologies. Publishers are endorsing technology advantages by offering a myriad of technology aids for all involved in the educational process. This chapter explores the value and acceptance of technology tools by both educators and learners. It explores the history of technology in education, perceptions of educators and learners, and technology tools available to promote engagement. The chapter concludes with a look to the future of technology and the importance of accepting that technology tools are integral factors for engaged learning.

Publisher’s Technologies: Toys, Tools, or Essential Engagement Aids?

Today’s learners are the most digitally connected learners in history. They use technology devices in multiple configurations obsessively and unfortunately without actually understanding the full power of these media. Publishers in higher education provide learning institutions with multiple media promising to engage and prepare learners for 21st century learning and global citizenship. Does the technology exaggerate its claims? Does embracing a technology-rich course benefit both the instructor and student, or is it just a convenient tool offered by publishers and software companies?

Education as an entity is slow to implement change and has multiple levels of institutional structure, including learning outcomes, syllabi, and academic standards, which dictate the basic underpinnings of an academic unit offered. Education is undergoing a paradigm shift in its core constituency as the veteran instructors retire, and new instructors emerge armed with their newer, technology-based expertise. For educators, this melding of technology into all curricula is a disruption to the status quo, a disruption to their routine and normal practice in the classroom. For the learners, the current state of teaching with minimal technology integration is a disruption to their learning needs. It is evident that some topics are not served sufficiently with technology tools, and this will probably always be the case. Nonetheless for many subjects, technology can assist in removing barriers for many learners through its multiple applications, graphical interfaces, and commonalities in ease-of-use interfaces.

Exploration of technologies promoted by publishing companies is short-listed by user ease, applicability, and probability of use. Analysis of a comparative list will rate learner versus instructor acceptance, aptitude, and comfort level in using these technologies. Conclusions for balancing the push for new technology integration, learner and instructor needs, and institutional considerations are presented.

Background: Multimedia and Learning

Research supports the opinion that a technology-centered approach is fraught with problems. Larry Cuban and Richard Mayer¹ maintain this approach has a long history of failure. Historically, there are three distinct cycles in the traditional technology approach. They are the following:

1. Technology is publicized as the definitive promise to revolutionize education.
2. There is an immediate rush to implement the technology no matter how well or poorly it is aligned to learning outcomes.
3. Years after the technology implementation, educators acknowledge the revolution promised by the technology failed.

Why has technology suffered in its implementation plans year after year? Overconfidence in the ability of technology to produce school change of a depth necessary to affect increase in learning through technology is one issue. School change requires curriculum change, in both the written and unwritten curriculum, and across-the-board educator buy-in to the value of and need for the change. Additionally, the lack of consistent effort in documenting change achieved through technology innovations and compiling data to assist in developing and implementing new technologies for learning is a major concern. Educators in the past 10 years have awakened to the need for data collection, based in part on the call for accountability in classrooms and assessment data collection. Last, education overestimated the time required to have more widespread technology access and failed to comprehend the unprecedented exponential rate of change in technology artifacts.² Equality in technology access has made great strides, but there is still a definite digital divide that isolates rural communities throughout the world. Technology’s exponential change has also hit roadblocks with the languid educational system. Textbook publishers have taken a lead by offering advanced technology integration tools as part of their textbook series.

What learners learn, as well as when and how they learn, makes the difference in integrating technology and achieving the associated learning outcomes. Thomas Friedman³ wrote that the technology revolution is beginning now, as technology tools work together to level the playing field. Twenty-first century learning skills require a strong background in technology artifacts, including technology familiarity, an understanding of technology ethics, and the ability to work collaboratively with others either face-to-face or virtually. Education is exceptionally poised to work with new technologies to help level this playing field from the small, remotely located underfunded classroom to the highly funded, urbanized, technologically rich classroom.

Educators understand the need for a change in education from the model of the past 50 years. Educators promote newer types of learning that are the standards for a 21st century learning classroom. Instilling these necessary standards is supported by technological artifacts, such as desktop computers, laptops, tablets, web 2.0, and smart phones to name a few. Correspondingly, technology plays an essential role in acquiring, developing, and polishing these 21st century skills.

Student and Teacher: Technology Roles in Flux

Humans tend to be contextual, so the context in which instruction is delivered is extremely important. Determining the proper context is not as easily done as in the past when classrooms were filled with traditional learners. Learners in classrooms today are largely digital natives, but in higher education classrooms, it is common to have a more diverse group including nontraditional-aged learners. Redesigning the context so that all are engaged is one of the challenges of using a technology-rich course. Educators must understand the variety of technology skills and offer assistance to those less technologically literate.

Teachers are no longer the sole experts of classroom technology. There is a shift in control of the classroom management scheme—the teacher no longer controls the entire learning experience but assigns “learning modes” for the learners, that is, simulations, videos, gaming, and then oversees learners’ work, whether extremely focused or meandering, throughout the activity.

Although the teacher still plans the activity, reviews areas of decision making, and develops instruction for the class, considerable changes occur with technology integrated into the lesson. When a technology-enhanced lesson actually engages the class, a sense of flow is achieved. As described by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi,⁴ flow is present when the learner in an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity. Technology has the power to achieve learning outcomes for learners by providing tools familiar to learners, thereby embracing the concept of flow. Using these familiar tools, online simulations, and games will make the learning process more comfortable and conducive to achieving flow. Learners involve themselves contextually in the lesson through simulations and games, immerse themselves in the learning, forget they are learning, and thus become part of the lesson itself.

Generation Y, the Millennial Generation born between 1982 and 2002⁵, are digital natives and compose the majority of learners today. They have grown up with the largest compendium of digital information in history, the Internet, and from a very early age have learned to use technology artifacts for entertainment, learning, and communication. This label of digital native means more than ease of use and familiarity with technology; it implies a different mind-set, language, or culture of technology than recognized by other generations.⁶ Being digital natives, the millennial generation is exceedingly fascinated with new technology and adapts technologies to meet their lifestyle needs and desires. Learners have no fear of technology and use it daily in their lives.⁷ Unfortunately, for the most part, learners are knowledgeable of many applications, especially social networking, but their skills are limited in actually using them for educational, social, and personal advantage. Many do not understand the longevity of items posted to the World Wide Web and the impact of e-mails and texts and lack basic skills in simple applications of production software used freely in education.

Proven Educational and Technology Tools

There are proven educational tools that publishers embrace to ensure that the lesson content and objectives are obtainable by all learners. The following is a brief list of technologies available and their current technology offerings for instructors.

1. Television and video—outwardly a bygone technology, but new advances have added user interfaces, ability to stop, scan, and play different parts of the video or DVD. Video technology also encompasses instructor-made videos, such as podcasts and YouTube or TeacherTube productions.
2. Engagement devices—interactive whiteboards; clicker systems including polling systems, smart phones, iPads, or other tablet devices; Netbooks; GIS (geographic information system); GPS (global positioning system); and educational gaming.
3. Virtual learning situations—virtual realities, virtual field trips, three-dimensional mapping, and simulated lab experiments.
4. In-school computing labs—simulations and modeling activities, productivity software, visualization tools, semantic and concept maps, and dynamic mathematical application software.
5. Communication—reflective dialogue opportunities as well as normal educator-learner communication, polling systems, Skype, Facebook, cloud computing, Google docs, and Live Chat available in many learning management systems (LMSs).
6. Miscellaneous delivery methods—online textbooks, including create-your-own systems, e-readers, videos such as podcasts, YouTube, and music or sound clips.

Publishers and many educational institutions realize it is time to move away from expecting faculty to make all their own technology course content. Educators are subject matter experts (SME), and while many are very technologically savvy, they are not necessarily experts in all aspects of technology, such as videography, multimedia applications, or development of gaming and simulation activities.⁹ Publishers recognize that having developed technology artifacts correlated to the subject matter will facilitate engagement and increase learning outcomes while allowing educators to do what they do best, which is share their expertise of the subject matter. An overarching concern is that technology correlated to the content area must follow a triangulation of skills to ensure that, along with the supplied content, sound learning principles and high-quality teaching merge to provide valid assessment and accountability data.

Technology and Classroom Engagement

Below are data retrieved from a survey conducted by Cengage and Eduventures that shows learners’ and instructors’ perceptions of technology use in promoting student engagement.

Instructors strongly felt that technology overall influences student engagement and has a high benefit to achieving student learning outcomes. The percentages show increasing instructor acceptance of student technology use although newer technologies lag in their overall perceived value for engagement. Furthermore, learners have a slightly different perception on the effect technology has on their overall learning outcomes. They believe the following technologies most strongly impact their learning:

Learners also report they are very interested in having their smart phones available to provide access to their grades (74%), to conduct research (68%), to take notes in class (59%), and to create and share documents and videos (37%).¹¹

Technology and Publishers: Looking to the Future

Publishers offer many tools for technology integration today, and the future holds multiple opportunities for more integration. Currently, many publishers allow learners to use online applications (apps) to read and answer questions on assigned text, rent e-books for courses, assess production software, use test banks compatible with most LMSs, and use computer-aided design to assist with technical and engineering drawings and renderings, all of which have led to a reduction in the purchase of traditional bound copies. Many publishers also offer online applications for science lab courses with virtual dissections.

Promising technologies still in the early adoption stages include the use of quick response (QR) codes, a technology similar to barcodes on items for instructors or publishers to code items in posters, flyers, or handouts, providing links to relevant information (books, articles, websites) and short videos (practical demos). Cloud computing and the use of cloud systems to replace the current LMSs many institutions use will provide more mobility and access for all learners. There will be an increase in the number of learning and augmented reality games in technology offerings from the publishers. Scenarios that combine technology, such as text messaging, built-in apps, and server-based apps accessible through mobile devices are rapidly becoming available to instructors and learners.

The reality of technology in the classroom is obvious: Technology is here, has been around for years, and it is time to leverage the multitude of technology services available to enhance learning and engage all who are willing to learn and use this technology. Today’s learners want to be engaged in their learning capacity, and they would prefer to use the technology tools they are familiar with to achieve this. Publishers have developed multiple integrated technology tools for instructors to assist in achieving this mission. Therefore, it is time for educators to release their hold on technology implementation and immerse their curriculum in total technology integration. There is nothing to lose and everything to gain by moving into the 21st century of technology-rich courses.