Technology in the
Classroom
Alyssa Altieri, Christina Bean, Chelsea
Graham, Erin McEntegart, and Brooke
Powers
C
Integrating Technology into the College Classroom:
Current Practices and Future Learning
 Research Study about current and future learning in regard to the
integration of technology in the classroom
 106 participants
 Technologies Identified:
 Support teaching and information sharing: Powerpoint, projectors,
smart boards, discussion boards
 Collaboration: Discussion boards, voicethreads, twitter, email,
voicemail
 Individual Technologies: computers, digital cameras, camcorders,
scanners, ipods, online grading, online assignment turn in and return
B
Technologies commonly used by college students:
 Today’s college generation is the most technical in history
 Internet, email, instant messaging, blogs, and social networking sites at
higher rates than any other generation.
 It is important for professionals to be aware and familiar with technology that
students use, especially since newer technologies are used to increase student
engagement and improve educational outcome.
 Also important for professionals to keep up with the newest technologies in
order to best serve the students
 Professionals should develop a technical mind-set
 Most common use of technology among college students are, cell phones,
instant messaging, blogs, social networking cites, and virtual worlds
 College students use the highest internet rates than the rest of the U. S
population
A
The Role of Digital Technologies in Learning: Expectations
of First Year University Students
 Methods:
 547 student involved
 The research team adopted a quantitative and qualitative mixed method
approach to data collection.
 The supplementary quantitative survey data was analyzed and informed the
core qualitative data from focus group interviews.
 Findings
 Students in this study did tend to use digital technologies in a variety of ways.
 The survey results showed that the technologies most frequently used inschool for learning included the Internet, email, word processing, math and
science programs, texting on cell phones, and electronic databases.
 Students reported that they expected professors to use a variety of digital
technologies in their classrooms. Some of these expectations were met, while
other students reported being in classrooms with professors who did not
choose to integrate digital technology into their teaching.
C
“Understanding the use of educational technology among
faculty, staff, and students at a medical university”

Study was conducted at a college of health professions at a medical university in South Carolina.

College consists of eleven academic programs in health sciences.

Study sought to find out the current state of technology use, perceptions of technology, and training needs.

Surveys and focus groups were used.

29/68 faculty members, 21/42 staff members, and 250/771 students participated in the study.

Email, Microsoft Word, and Microsoft PowerPoint were tools “always” used by all three groups of respondents.

Staff showed a desire for additional training on email, calendar tools, SharePoint, Facebook, Respondus, and Survey
Monkey.

Students were asked to rate their use of technology compared to students at other universities (average 61.8%, high
32.5%, and low 5.6%).

Students were also asked to rate the use of technology in their respective programs of study (average 51.6%, high 48%,
and low 0.4%).

The faculty was asked similar questions, and the answers followed the general response trend of average-high.

Three student and two faculty focus groups were formed to talk about the use of technology at the university and give
recommendations for improvement.
Computers and Education
 Purpose: To study the overall impact of using technology based
instruction within the classroom on k-12 or even higher levels of
education settings
 Methodology: experimental or quasi-experimental research
design, wanted to measure virtual reality based instruction.
 Findings: Game shows showed that there were higher learning
gains that other type of virtual learning. Students are better
learning by themselves rather with a group for this form of
technology.
 Virtual learning did have a high learning rate also.
CH
Problem and Hypothesis
 Problem:
 Do Franciscan University students think there is an
appropriate amount of technology used within the
classroom?
 Hypothesis:
 Franciscan University students do not think that there is
enough technology used within the classroom.
CH
Methodology
 Administered surveys to 11 different classes at Franciscan
University, which contained students of various majors and
grade levels.
 Classes were chosen based on the willingness of their professor
to have us come in during their class time.
 Students were asked to fill out the survey to the best of their
ability.
 304 surveys were collected.
 The results of the surveys were gathered together and tallied.
E
1.) What is your major? _____________________________
Minor?______________________________
B
2.)What is your gender?
☐Male
☐Female
B
3.) In high school, what kind of high school did you
attend?
☐Public ☐Private ☐Home school
B
4.) Indicate your class level:
☐Freshman
☐Sophomore
☐Junior
☐Senior
☐Graduate student
B
5.) How many semesters have you attended Franciscan University,
including this one?
☐1 ☐2
☐3
☐4
☐5
☐6
☐7
☐8 ☐9 or
more
A
6.) Did you transfer into Franciscan University of
Steubenville from another college or university?
☐Yes ☐No
A
7.) If you answered yes to number 6, did your previous
school use more or less technology than FUS?
☐More
☐Less
A
8.) Do you have access to a personal computer or laptop?
☐Yes ☐No
A
9.) How often do you typically utilize the computer labs on
campus per week?
☐0-2 ☐3-5
☐6-10
☐Over 10
C
10.) Of the times that you use the computer labs on
campus, how often is it just for printing purposes?
☐Every time ☐More often than not
☐Less often
than not
☐Not at all
C
11.) In which ways do your professors integrate technology
in the classroom setting? (Check all that apply)
☐Blackboard ☐MyFranciscan
☐Powerpoint
☐Videos from the Internet
☐ Other
C
12.) How many of your professors this semester are using the
following (indicate the number of professors on the line):
____ Blackboard
____ MyFranciscan
____ Powerpoint
____ Videos from Internet
____Other
C
13.) Of all of the assignments in your courses this semester,
around what percentage of your assignments require the
use of technology?
☐ 0-24% ☐ 25-49% ☐50-74% ☐75-99% ☐100%
CH
14.) Of all the assignments in your courses this semester,
around what percentage of your assignments are turned in
using technology?
☐ 0% ☐25%
☐50%
☐75%
☐100%
CH
15.) How comfortable are you using technology in an
academic setting?
☐Not at all ☐Moderately comfortable ☐Very
comfortable
CH
16.) How many of your professors have taken class time to explain
the forms of technology that could be useful in your studies?
☐0
☐ 1-5
☐6-10
☐Over 10
CH
17.) How many of your professors have taken class time to explain
the forms of technology that could be required for their class?
☐0
☐ 1-5
☐6-10
☐Over 10
E
18.) How well do you feel that your courses, over all, use technology
in the classroom this semester?
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
E
19.) Do you feel that your professors should integrate technology
into the classroom more than they are currently doing?
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
E
20.) What were your expectations of the use of technology at
Franciscan University? And were your expectations met?
 Met: 96
 Not Met: 89
 No Expectations:78
 Some expectations that were not met:
 MyFranciscan is used more
 Basic training on how to use MyFranciscan and Blackboard
 Laptops in the classroom
 Better internet
 A lot of questions were left up to our interpretation because they
didn’t specifically use the words “met” or “not met”
 Many people stated their expectations were met, but they had very
low expectations.
E
20.) What were your expectations of the use of technology at
Franciscan University? And were your expectations met?

“I thought blackboard would be utilized a lot and that grades would be put onlineneither of which has occurred at all. I also had hoped handouts would be online but
they are not either. My high school was much better with this than FUS.”

“Technology could be used more in communications of grades/assignments as well
for turning in assignments. Coming from a high school where virtually everything
was done online, my expectations of the University were similar but have not
really been met.”

“Now that the classrooms have Wi-Fi access (unlike last year), my expectations of
being able to save paper by following notes online have been met.”

“I did not expect much, and I have not gotten much. However, that is not to say
that I think the level the University is currently at is acceptable. I firmly believe that
the university ought to devote some resources to making this campus a little more
modern.”
E
Discussion
 Hypothesis was not right, but it was very close.
 Expectations were very different from person to person.
 People generally come to school because the standards
meet their standards, even if it does not meet the general
standards
B
Implications
 Policy
 CSWE
 Technology requirements in the classroom because knowledge
of how to use it in the field is important
 Practice
 Agencies should use it, but because of the differences used in
different college settings there is a wide variety of
knowledge
C
Limitations
 Question #1: What is your major? Minor?
 Question #3: In high school, what kind of high school did you attend?
 Question #4: Indicate your class level.
 Questions #7: If you answered yes to number 5, did your previous
school use more or less technology than FUS?
 Grad Students and their technology in their undergraduate schools
 Question #14: Of all the assignments in your course this semester,
around what percentage of your assignments are turned in using
technology?
CH
Limitations continued
 Question #16 and #17
 Human error
 #16 & 17: There was some confusion from some participants
regarding whether questions were referring to this current
semester.
 Not clear definitions of technology
 Difference in what people want in terms of technology
 Total of 304 surveys but many questions had under 300 answers
CH
Suggestions for future research
endeavors
 Administer a pilot study to a small group of people in order
to catch the errors that were overlooked by us.
 Have an understanding that there will be limitations
regardless of how the survey looks or is created.
 Remove the qualitative question from our quantitative
study
 Compare it to other universities results
A
What we learned…
 It takes a lot longer to do the whole project than we
thought.
 Some people do not take research seriously.
 There is a wide range of expectations for the use of the
technology at Franciscan University.
E
References

Annan, D., Carson, N., Freeland, M., Hodge, A., Kazley, A., Seif, G., & Zoller, J. (2013).
Understanding the use of educational technology among faculty, staff, and students at a
medical university. TechTrends, 57(2), 63-70.

Lindbeck, R., Fodrey, F (2010). Integrating Technology into the College Classroom: Current
Practices and Future Options. University of North Carolina, NC: National Social Science
Association.

McAuley, A., Gabriel, M. A., Campbell, B., Wiebe, S., & MacDonald, R. J. (2012). The role of
digital technologies in learning: Expectations of first year university students. Canadian
Journal of Learning, 38(1), Retrieved from http://ehis.ebscohost.com.fr.opallibraries.org/eds/detail?sid=ed6f1e79-e369-499f-a6b5e8002f8d6748@sessionmgr4003&vid=3&hid=4211&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU=

Merchant, Z. & Goetz, E. & Cifuentes, L. & Keeney-Kennicutt, W. & Davis, T. (2014).
Effectiveness of virtual reality-based instruction on students’ learning outcomes in K-12 and
higher education: A meta-analysis. Computers & Education. Volume 70. Retrieved from
http://journals.ohiolink.edu/ejc/pdf.cgi/Merchant_Zahira.pdf?issn=0360