Student Technical Assistant (STA) Programs:
Local, WAC-Based, and University-Wide Models

Dickie Selfe, Karla Kitalong, Dona Hickey, Joe Essid, Robert Alan Harris, and Phillip Long

The state of technological affairs in English studies departments across the nation mimics that of other departments, even departments such as engineering and those in the natural sciences that traditionally have a much longer history of investing in technology and technology support. Departments interested in developing technology-rich curricula are facing what the AAHE's Steve Gilbert (1997) calls a "support crisis." Plenty of evidence supports the argument that this crisis will only grow more intense in the coming years.

Kenneth Green's 1996 National Survey of Information Technology in Higher Education illustrates that "instructional integration and user support are the two most important information technology issues confronting American colleges and universities over the next two-three years" (1). Green's data indicate that "just over one-fourth (27.3 percent) of the 660 institutional respondents to the 1996 Campus Computing Survey identify "assisting faculty integrate technology into instruction" as the "single most important" information technology issue at their institution in the coming years.

A 1996 survey of 55 post-secondary English studies departments that support technology-rich facilities demonstrated similar trends (Richard Selfe, 1997). When teachers, students, student workers, technicians, and administrators were asked to choose from five options concerning the most important instructional challenges faced by teachers as they attempt to integrate technology into their classes, they chose the following:

The first three most popular choices are suggestive of the support crisis that Gilbert and Green claim is ubiquitous in higher education.

Even more disturbing is the "dynamic of blame" that emerged from the comments made in the "explanation or other options" of Selfe's survey. Students often said that they felt as if they knew more about technology than their instructors whom they considered ill prepared to teach with technology. Both administrators and technical staff claimed that many teachers were incompetent technology users, that teachers were often unwilling to learn and take responsibility for helping students with new systems (even when supplied with training sessions), and that teachers, particularly those who were tenured or tenure-track, were uninterested in teaching in new technological environments.

When describing their own challenges, teachers, on the other hand, pointed at administrators who provided few professional incentives, oversaw static pay schedules and increasing workloads, and failed to provide access to convenient equipment and time for project development. They found support staff unresponsive to their immediate needs, and students' technological expectations unrealistic and inappropriate. This unproductive dynamic of blame is at least partly a function of our inability to provide just-in-time human support to teachers as they learn, plan, and implement technology-rich instruction in their courses.

As more faculty, especially those who are not early adopters of technology, come to realize that the digital age is not just a fad, they will swell the ranks of those wishing to learn more about emerging technologies and implement instructionally sound technology-rich activities in their classes. This increased pressure to provide training, access, and support makes the dynamic of blame even more likely to erupt.

In this half-day preconvention workshop, six facilitators from three different institutions will describe the related but unique approaches they have taken while to support teachers as they learn, plan, and implement technology-rich activities in their classes. All approaches involve attempts to provide traditionally expensive desk-side assistance for teachers even as students receive valuable, often paid, hands-on experience as they collaborate with instructors.

A LOCALIZED APPROACH:

Dickie Selfe and Karla Kitalong of Michigan Technological University will describe their attempts to match students--technical assistants trained in of an English studies lab environment--with technology-rich projects recommended by individual faculty or disciplinary committees within a Humanities department. In their attempts to support students in this endeavor they will report on curricular opportunities they have provided students and how those are integrated into the faculty development institutes, seminars, and workshops within the department. They will also report on their initial efforts to collaborate with other important institutional stakeholders--specifically, technology specialists working with students seeking secondary educational certification and equal opportunity administrators struggling to provide training for financially challenged and under-represented groups on campus.

TECHNOLOGY ASSISTANTS IN WRITING-INTENSIVE CLASSES ACROSS THE CURRICULUM:

Joe Essid and Dona Hickey, from the University of Richmond, will describe a program that incorporates communication technologies into writing-across-the-curriculum efforts in various disciplines. Students known as Writing Fellows enroll in a three-credit course that prepares them to work with faculty in the Humanities Core Class required of all first-year students, in other introductory courses in the arts and sciences, and some upper-level classes.As a part of their training, all prospective Writing Fellows use electronic mail, a class newsgroup, and synchronous conferences. Recently, the students also began to create class Web portfolios. A goal of this work is the assignment of Writing Fellows who assist faculty not only with helping students write better essays and reports, but also with incorporating these three technologies into their classwork to provide other rhetorical spaces in which students can practice writing. To offer students, Writing Fellows, tutors, and faculty a variety of resources suited to their needs, we have re-designed and expanded our WAC cite. We will highlight by demo or transparencies selected features of the new site.

UNIVERSITY-WIDE STUDENT TECHNOLOGY ASSISTANT PROGRAMS:

Phil Long (now at Seton Hall University) and Robert Harris will describe a university-wide STA program at William Paterson University, a program that has attracted a great deal of attention at the AAHE's Teaching Learning and Technology Roundtable Summer Institute (Phoenix, 1997) and a recent Chronicle of Higher Education article (1997). Their program recognizes that students have been used as "lab monitors" from the time there have been public access computing spaces, but Student Technology Assistant programs recognize the vital role that students have to play in solving the support crisis that plagues higher education. Student Technology Assistant programs train undergraduates in both technology and consultation skills in order to help students and faculty adopt and integrate innovative computing applications in classwork and research. The chasm between "lab monitors" and professional consultants is wide and is not easily crossed alone. Implementing an STA program requires convincing many actors on the academic scene that the program is both useful and cost-effective. The process involves a strategy which addresses all levels of the college or university community. Long and Harris will describe the various forms that Student Technology Assistant programs can take and share tactics for electronic collaboration between institutions .

WORKSHOP SCHEDULE:

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