Using pedagogical dialogue as a vehicle to encourage faculty technology use

The pace of technology adoption by university faculty is often slow. Slow faculty technology adoption may result from fear of failure, disinterest, or aversion to change. However, in 2007 we experienced a different faculty response while training faculty for technology-enhanced teaching at Butler University. During a technology upgrade of classrooms on our campus, we installed SMART^™ interactive whiteboards and Sympodiums^™ (SMART Technologies), visual presenters and CopyCams^™ (Polyvision/Steelcase). The technology trainers and information technology (IT) department anticipated a lack of faculty interest in training on these technologies. It was posited that faculty would not be interested in learning about these interactive and presentation technologies unless this learning could be connected in some way to their individual teaching interests and responsibilities. A novel, collaborative training model was developed to achieve this goal of placing technology training into a pedagogical context. A multidisciplinary group of faculty, working closely with representatives from IR, served as trainers for this highly successful faculty development effort in which 27% of the university faculty were trained over a three month period. This article details the methods and outcomes of this collaborative training team approach.