Committee on Educational Technology
10:30-12:00 noon, Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Present: Eric Loehr, Thomas Laughner, Fernando Armstrong-Fumero, John Davis, Jefferson Hunter, Gary Felder, Herb Nickles, Eric Brewer, Glenn Ellis, and Helene Visentin
Absent: Marnie Anderson
Approval of September 21, 2010 Minutes
The minutes of the September 19, 2010 meeting were approved as submitted.
HERI questionnaire – Tom Laughner & John Davis
Tom had sent out suggestions of questions to the committee and requested feedback. As a result, he then forwarded three questions to John Davis. John reviewed the questions with members of the Faculty Council and edited a bit of the wording. The final questions were approved by the CET.
SPSS – Tom Laughner
Tom polled the faculty about their use of SPSS and their willingness to move to another software package and found that most faculty were willing and able to make the transition. The Psychology Department was very firm in their resistance to move from SPSS as many classes are using it and they felt that their students would need to be proficient in using SPSS for graduate studies. Tom then sent a questionnaire to the top Psychology graduate schools to see what they were using and what their expectations were for incoming students. Many graduate schools are moving to other software due to the change in pricing and potential change in direction of the company now that it has been purchase by IBM. They also had no particular expectation that incoming students would be proficient in SPSS. John Davis noted that in discussions with Five College Deans he found that Hampshire College has phased out SPSS and that UMass is in the process of phasing it out as well. He did say that he had spoken at length with the chair of Psychology and that Psychology would be willing to commit $12,000/year to offset the price increase. The ETS budget currently has $18,000 set aside for SPSS but the cost under the new pricing structure will be $45,000 for the first year. If Psychology commits $12,000 there is still a $15,000 shortfall. Gary Felder, Jeff Hunter, and Tom Laughner are scheduled to meet with the Psychology Department later today and they will bring back information from the meeting to the next CET meeting and hopefully the committee will be able to make a decision about how to move forward.
Mobile Devices - Tom Laughner
Tom told the committee that at last week’s Educause conference there was a lot of discussion about mobile learning. The feeling was that use of mobile devices in classrooms and outside classrooms develops critical evaluating skills and allows for collaborative learning in groups. He said that ETS was thinking about developing a theme for grant proposals this year on the use of mobile devices. He gave a demonstration of a few apps available for iPads and said that his group would create a workshop this spring for faculty to show them possible uses for these devices in the classroom. The committee expressed their interest in such a proposal.
Computers in seminar rooms – Tom Laughner
Currently ETS is testing computer set-ups in seminar rooms in Seelye, Bass, Hatfield, and Wright Halls. Tom said that a survey of faculty using those rooms showed general satisfaction and very few problems.
Other Matters
Herb Nickles told the committee that the Administrative Technology group has been developing a Smith directory app for iPhone/iPad. Once all the bugs are worked out, the app will be submitted to Apple for approval and then it will be made available via iTunes for use by students, parents, prospective students, etc.
The next meeting will be November 16th at 10:30 AM in Stoddard Hall G4 conference room.
Respectfully submitted,
Connie McGinn, recorder