Texas A&M event to examine teaching with technology

  • By VIMAL PATEL

  • Posted: Saturday, February 4, 2012 7:00 a.m.
  • Text size: A A A


A year away from being a septuagenarian, Texas A&M professor Dennie Smith taps his iPad to manage his Facebook and Twitter accounts.


So it was in the spirit of his embrace of technology that he used an educational grant to loan iPads to 36 students for the whole year in a pair of courses he taught on multicultural education.


"We want the students to be comfortable with technology," Smith said. "It's ever-present. They're going to be using it no matter what they're doing."


Smith's goal is to better integrate technology into the classroom.


An explanation of the iPad effort is one of about 30 presentations scheduled during the Teaching with Technology Conference at Texas A&M on Wednesday and Thursday.


Held in Rudder Tower and put on by Instructional Technology Services, the conference is open to all employees of A&M System institutions.


Some of the other topics include sessions on Prezi, a relatively new presentation tool; collaborating to offer a large-section lecture course online; helping teachers better understand social media applications; and how to use 3-D technology to improve spatial and science skills.


"It's a really great opportunity to see what your colleagues are doing," said Pierce Cantrell, vice president and associate provost for information technology.


In Smith's multicultural education course, students use their iPads to figure out how to navigate through a foreign country, including finding directions, accommodations, currency rates and costs.


Mobile Internet also allows students to use the Web to look up concepts they may not be familiar with during lectures in real time, Smith said.


"It's another generation of student we're dealing with," Smith said. "What you have is a new relationship, a new way of developing socially."


But don't expect Smith to be firing off tweets about what he had for breakfast, or Facebook updates about his relationship status (he's been happily married for nearly 30 years, thank you).


"I'm not like a lot of people -- I'm a busy professional," Smith said. "Some people live on there. You have to learn how to use these technologies so they're not invasive. You have to capitalize on it to benefit you."


IF YOU GO


Visit itsinfo.tamu.edu/twtc for more information. The conference is open to all employees of A&M System institutions. It's free to attend, but registration is recommended for better event planning.

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