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By Kevin Green ~ All full time undergraduate students at Morningside are enrolled in the Notebook Computer Program. But what exactly does that entail? Aside from signing for their computers, many students lack interest in or knowledge of the program and never give it a second thought.<\/p>\n
Thankfully Dr. Marlene Jacobson, educational technologist here at Morningside, took a few moments to answer questions regarding the program and offer tips to students.<\/p>\n
The Collegian:\u00a0 <\/strong>Nice office. Though the curtains make it look like you\u2019re shutting yourself out from the rest of the world.<\/p>\n Dr. Jacobson:<\/strong> The table out front of my window is very popular because there\u2019s an outlet and people charge their computers. I\u2019m sitting here working and there\u2019s some one\u2019s face right there. Plus there are a lot of classes in the library, so it can be a bit distracting. I don\u2019t want to close the blinds because I know that makes it look like I\u2019m not very friendly, so it\u2019s a happy medium.<\/p>\n The Collegian:\u00a0 <\/strong>Speaking of computers, the Information Services Team here is making plans for next year. Has the school given any thought to tablets or Ipads?<\/p>\n Dr. Jacobson<\/strong>: Yes we have. In fact, we started last year with the big rage of Ipads. We\u2019re investigating what students use them for. They\u2019re very hot. They\u2019re very flashy. Of course we want to do cool stuff but we need to see how the tool fits in with the teaching and learning. Keep in mind Ipads cost around $479, that\u2019s a lot of money. As students you still need to do word-processing, spreadsheets, and have specific software like Adobe Suite for graphic design classes as well as software for other disciplines. Ipads won\u2019t do that.<\/p>\n Next year I\u2019m going to be offering pilot programs that use Android devices. We\u2019re also looking at eReaders and e-Text.<\/p>\n The Collegian:\u00a0 <\/strong>Really?<\/p>\n Dr. Jacobson:<\/strong> \u00a0We put an eReader on the student issued computers this year. But only have a few faculty who are looking at having eTextbooks. The e-Text allow for interactivity. For example with anatomy or nursing an organ picture could break apart and animate and have interactive activities identifying the parts and\/or uses. It\u2019s almost like an imbedded video. At the same time we\u2019re trying to save students money, because textbooks are so expensive.<\/p>\n The Collegian: <\/strong>What about the Dells. It seems like more and more students are steering away from them?<\/p>\n Dr. Jacobson:\u00a0 <\/strong>This is my fourth school year. When I first came we had laptop assignments for students based on their major. Only music and graphic arts got Macs and the rest got PCs. Then we decided to open up the decision to the students. The Macs are more expensive and Apple does great advertising. We try to give informed decisions to students, but I\u2019m convinced there are \u201cMac-Heads\u201d and \u201cPC-Heads.\u201d The way that people approach computing is in a sense the way they do a lot of things.<\/p>\n The Collegian: <\/strong>Are there any services or tricks that students may not necessarily know about or be utilizing?<\/p>\n Dr. Jacobson:\u00a0 <\/strong>There\u2019s a group of us on the 2015 technology task force. The president has formed the group to look at the future of computing.\u00a0 He\u2019s concerned about economy and making sure we are technologically on top of the game.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a need for students to have more technological skills and savvy. There\u2019s a myth out there that students know how to do everything and it\u2019s the faculty who are behind. I help students but very few take advantage of the service. We\u2019re finding that students don\u2019t know what they probably should and that\u2019s scary. We need to assess what our students know and don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n The Collegian: \u00a0<\/strong>Any examples?<\/p>\n Dr Jacobson: <\/strong>Plagiarism is a big one. It\u2019s so easy to grab stuff and not know that it\u2019s stealing. Lending files of things someone downloaded and making a copy then keeping it for example. Students think that\u2019s fine. There\u2019s a value system the current generation of students don\u2019t understand. They think it\u2019s free just because you can do it.<\/p>\n Also, It \u2018s hard for them to understand what\u2019s safe computing and what\u2019s not. A lot of our students get viruses and we fix them up, but there are ways they can prevent that, though they don\u2019t know how. I\u2019d love to help. All anyone has to do is drop by and ask.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Kevin Green ~ All full time undergraduate students at Morningside are enrolled in the Notebook Computer Program. But what exactly does that entail? Aside from signing for their computers, many students lack interest in or knowledge of the program and never give it a second thought. Thankfully Dr. Marlene Jacobson, educational technologist here at…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":3874,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4287],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/80"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3873"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3873\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3941,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3873\/revisions\/3941"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}