How has your opinion changed (or why has it stayed the same) over the past 11 weeks regarding Technology Integration?

       Prior to enrolling in this class, I felt that integrating technology into the classroom was essential in order to best prepare our young people for the "real world". Especially in these trying economic times, businesses are looking for ways to become more efficient in order to compete in the global economy. In order to give our students the skills desired by employers, I firmly believe technology integration should be implemented into the classroom. I learned so much more in this class than I had anticipated and this course took my belief in integrating technology into the classroom to a whole new level.Technology integration can provide educators a variety of ways to assess student learning as well as develop activities that require higher order thinking skills. Because most students today have used technology most of their lives, implementing it into the classroom is a way to engage students in their learning. I am very glad that I took this course because I learned so many practical things that I can take into my future career as an educator.
  

Literature Review #2

            This article focuses on colleges and universities and their practices of using technology to recruit students to their campuses. Higher education institutions across the country are looking to become as efficient and effective as they possibly can when it comes to recruiting students. However, few admission departments feel confident that they are fully benefiting from technology as it pertains to student recruitment.

            The article states that 88% of prospective students would be disappointed or eliminate a school all together if the schools website did not meet their expectations. This study suggests that the role of technology has a heavy impact on the decisions students are making as it pertains to where to go to school. This generation of college bound students is referred to as the Millennials.

This generation was born between 1982 and 2000 and constantly needs to be connected to their social network while having access to digital media. The authors state that by the years 2016-17 the percentage of students seeking a bachelor’s degree will rise by 26%. This data provides admission departments across the country with a great opportunity as well as a challenge to recruit students to their campuses. The article suggests that universities should combine their business marketing practices with technology in order to attract the best and brightest to their institutions of higher learning.

746 students were surveyed to explore the technologies experienced by prospective students during the recruitment process in addition to how much of an impact each of these experiences had in their final decision in regards to where they chose to attend school. Of the 746 surveyed, 60% were female while 40% were male and approximately 95% of those surveyed were either 18 or 19 years old.

The two technologies that were most experienced by students during the recruitment process were the school web site and email. Surprisingly, over 50% of those surveyed replied that these two technologies were the only technologies they experienced during this process. Not only was the school web site and email rated the most experienced by students, they were also rated as the most useful technologies they used during their recruitment process. Cell phones were rated third behind the aforementioned technologies, and no other form of technology was experienced by a third of the total students that were surveyed.

What was fascinating about this article was the lack of diverse technologies used to recruit a population of students who have been using several varying technologies most of, if not their entire lives. It was really amazing that over half of all students surveyed used only a web site and email during their college decision making process. This article illustrates the disconnect between “Digital Natives” and “Digital Immigrants” in regards to technology. College recruiting is a competitive field, and many admission offices across the nation are looking for ways to use newer technologies to connect and attract these Millennials to their schools. 

Lindbeck, R., & Fodrey, B. (2010). Using Technology in Undergraduate Admission: A Student Perspective. Journal of College Admission, (208), 10-17. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/EJ893890.pdf