Creating technology awareness among staff and faculty

Abstract

Rapid development and innovation of new technologies present many opportunities for improving learning. However, the fast rate of change, required technical aptitude, and available resources are barriers for people to adapt new technologies. The Technology Awareness Talks that we hold at our institution attempt to remove these barriers and bring together technical “experts” and interested staff and faculty. In developing these talks, there were numerous challenges including a distributed workforce, lack of facilities, promotion, lack of funding, and time. Using a unique format, these talks were able to introduce many staff and faculty to interesting technologies and avoid or mitigate some of the problems that we faced.