Digital
technologies, when designed and used properly, can help enhance college
students’ learning and faculty are often encouraged to adopt such tools for
their courses. That flies out the window when the institution doesn’t have the
infrastructure to support the digital technologies selected by instructors.
At George
Washington University, for instance, there aren’t enough smart rooms—classrooms
wired for multimedia—to house all of the foreign-language courses that need
them this term, according to The Hatchet
campus publication. Most of the language instructors use electronic course
materials and teaching aids intended to assist students in practicing speaking
and verbal comprehension.
Bumped out
of some smart rooms by higher-enrollment courses, smaller language classes
ended up in rooms where electronic equipment was missing or malfunctioning. A
German instructor said she had to repeatedly cancel classes because her
assigned room didn’t have the right technology.
“That is
just the way language learning is in the 21st century, and it is really tough
when you don’t have those tools,” the instructor said.
Some
courses had no assigned classroom at all, forcing the instructor to find an
empty room or even an unoccupied lounge space.
The head of
the Spanish language program suggested dividing larger lecture halls into
smaller rooms that could handle technology needs. “And the lecture mode of
teaching is kind of dissipating a little bit, and so as that happens, you need
to accommodate the space to the new reality of teaching,” she said.
