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"Beyond Computer Literacy:
Implications of Technology for the Content and Outcomes of a
College Education"
Computers and the
Internet already play several important roles in improving
the outcomes of liberal education (i.e., who can get
education and what they can do by the time they graduate).
(By "liberal education," I mean education that
1. Computer
literacy and fluency: when
students learn to use computers and the Internet as tools,
both for general purposes and within their majors.
2. Effectiveness:
when technology is used to foster faculty-student
connections, student-student collaboration, active learning,
and other practices that can improve outcomes: practices
that, according to research, tend to improve student
outcomes. For more on this topic, see our resource page on
the "seven principles of good
practice."
3. Access:
when technology is used to support programs and practices
that are truly available to non-traditional learners who
would otherwise be unable to enroll and excel. This category
includes distance learning,
alternative scheduling, and forms of education that are more
accessible to students
with disabilities.
All three
of these applications are well-established and growing. Now
there’s a fourth application of technology to liberal
education:
4. Content
and Outcomes: Computers and the
Internet, as they’re used in the larger world, have
implications for what all college students should have
learned from their majors as well as from the more shared
elements of their educations. These transformative
implications go far beyond computer literacy or fluency.
Click
here to see five defining outcomes of a liberal education,
and the implications of technology for each one.
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