Flashlight Case Study

Inge Schmidt, Assoc. Prof. Information Systems
Notre Dame College of Ohio

Notre Dame College of Ohio, a small Catholic liberal arts college in Cleveland and a member of the Flashlight Network, was a relative latecomer in developing its technology strategy.  However, since beginning campus computerization, the commitment has been strong for providing students the opportunity to develop the technology skills so necessary for many careers. 

After the wiring of the campus and a two-year faculty development effort that led to two-thirds of the full-time faculty developing classroom projects, a barrier to further incorporation of technology became evident.  A significant proportion of NDC students either did not own a computer or did not have access to one on the job that could be used for school work.  Another segment had computers at home but did not own the software necessary for classes or did not subscribe to Internet service.  This problem prompted the faculty and administration to look into a laptop lease program to afford broader access to students. 

To explore the possibilities of such a computer leasing program, Information Systems majors were provided laptop computers along with a suite of professional software for one full year.  Faculty in this discipline would incorporate more group work, increased use of communication tools such as e-mail and bulletin boards, and more complex assignments requiring use of several software tools.  Flashlight was to help evaluate the program as well as to explore a number of issues that were becoming important for the development of a technology strategy by the faculty.

The study began with a pre-survey of students in 15 classes.  Some of these courses—like philosophy—were labeled “low-tech” because of their relatively minimal use of computing, others like science and information systems we labeled “high-tech” because faculty members typically required extensive use of computers.  Students in the laptop program were in many of the courses.  This part of the Flashlight study focused on learning activities, communication between students and faculty, types of technologies used, benefits of technology, and time on task.  In addition, background data was collected on skill levels with common software, time commitments for work/study/home responsibilities, computer ownership and Internet access, demographics, major field and retention. We learned, among other things, that computers were used rather differently in the high tech classes when compared with low tech classes: less for presentation, more for group work and more often in ways that helped them apply their educations to non-academic tasks.

In a second study that drew on items in the Flashlight Current Student Inventory, the laptop students were again surveyed at the end of the academic year.  This survey asked them to consider usage in all information systems classes throughout the year.   Some questions on the benefits of the laptops were asked in parallel to those posed at other laptop institutions to provide a benchmark.

The most prominent finding from the second survey is the many ways in which students believed the laptops helped them learn:  learning more actively (100% of respondents believed their use of computers helped in this way), working on larger, more complex assignments (100%), increasing critical thinking (93%), understanding material better (100%), finding material more interesting (100%), working on projects with more student choice and responsibility (100%), learning the process for solving problems (100%), and learning professional expectations (87%).

Both Flashlight studies have helped us document and pinpoint student needs, profiled use of technology and types of pedagogical activities in a wide variety of classes.  The results will be used in three areas:  (1) to craft a universal access program to fit the needs of NDC students, (2) to expand the general education requirement from one of computer skills gained in one core course to that of information literacy and problem-solving across the curriculum, and (3) to fashion a development program that helps faculty incorporate the appropriate technology into challenging, collaborative, real-life classroom activities.

Further details on this study can be obtained from Dr. Inge Schmidt, Associate Professor of Information Systems, at ischmidt@ndc.edu.

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