The Impact of Technology on Faculty Development, Life, and Work

A critical and global issue in higher education today is the implementation of technology in our individual, institutional, and collective settings for the enhancement of teaching and learning in the widest sense. The scope of the issue is inclusive not only of undergraduate and graduate teaching and learning within the classroom and beyond, but also of the research and service or outreach components of our mission-in short, of everything we do in higher education.

The foundation assumptions for this exploration of issues relating to the impact of technology are that (1) technology, faculty members' lives and work, and faculty development are inextricably bound together; (2) learning by doing is effective learning; (3) the rapidity of technological change and its importance for education will neither diminish nor disappear; and (4) it is imperative for us to reflect and then to act in increasingly vigorous ways on the possibilities and realities of technological change. We can do so positively and with enthusiasm about improving the quality of all that we have been seeking to do for centuries-structuring ever more effectively the formalized education and subsequent enlightment of those who come after us and of ourselves in the process.

These thoughts are offered as an invitation to readers to reflect, to affirm or redefine thoughts still forming, and finally to act in the effort we are all making to incorporate exciting new technological capabilities into our changing world of higher education.

This is the 76th issue of the quarterly journal New Directions for Teaching and Learning.

KAY HERR GILLESPIE is editor and faculty consultant in the Office of Instructional Support and Development at the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia. She is also professor emerita at Colorado State University.