Steven W. Gilbert's Columns in Syllabus Magazine

Recent Articles by the TLT Group and Friends:

• Translucent Technology:  Transparent Technology for Instruction is Neither Possible Nor Desirable  [Expanded 5/8/02 pre-print version of Steven W. Gilbert’s June, 2002 Syllabus Column]
  

• The Best Demos Aren't Demos: New Hybrids Allow "Walking the Walk"
  by Steve Gilbert, President, The TLT Group
  This article examines new combinations of online and onsite media that "effectively improve both the access to and the quality of instructional activities and materials"  
  

• Building a Curriculum for Change
  by Steve Gilbert, President, The TLT Group
  This “curriculum” is a set of topics and strategies selected to help a college or university improve teaching and learning with information technology – while controlling costs and coping with accelerating change.

• Campus Portals
  This Resource Cluster is a gateway to information about Campus Portal Systems.  Included in this Cluster are collections of materials from a Campus Portal course, taught by Dave Eisler, as well as Webcast Archives, articles, listserv messages, and more.

• Changing Education is Education
  by Steve Gilbert, President, The TLT Group
  The pace of change based on new educational uses of information technology is not going to slow down in the foreseeable future.  The need for new knowledge, skills, and “deep learning” among faculty, support professionals, and administrators will increase.

• Cooperative Learning 
  Contributed by Barbara Millis, Ph.D. of the US Air  Force Academy, the articles and other resources contained in this Resource Cluster provide important information to anyone seeking to integrate cooperative learning techniques into the technology mediated classroom.

• Coping with Terrorism and Grief
  This resource Cluster provides materials related to understanding and dealing with the pain and confusion following the terrorist acts of 9/11/01 and since.

• Fire Circles, Compassionate Pioneers, & Nurturing Community
  by Steve Gilbert, President, The TLT Group
  Steve Gilbert discusses his experiences volunteering at a summer camp and uses the practices of that community to demonstrate how we can honor and appreciate those around us.  "Of all the organizations and programs I’ve known, the Baltimore Yearly Meeting (Quaker) Camping Program has been most successful at creating and sustaining the kind of Nurturing Community so many of us seek."

• Low Threshold Applications (LTAs): A Resource Cluster 
  This resource cluster serves as an introduction to LTAs, technology applications that are geared toward enabling (almost ALL) faculty to use information technology in teaching and learning.  It includes events, definitions, examples, and an opportunity to submit your examples.

• A New Vision Worth Working Toward: Connected Education and Collaborative Change
  by Steve Gilbert, President, The TLT Group
  In higher education, we do not need a vision of the perfect curriculum, the perfect textbook, the perfect Web site, the perfect classroom, the perfect campus, the perfect home study, the perfect carrel, the perfect combination of media. We need a vision of improvement and change - how to keep moving forward, how to know when we're making mistakes, and how to correct them.

• Open Source and Open Course
  The TLT Group's newest Resource Cluster.  A compilation of resources for those interested in exploring the Open Source and Open Course movements in Education

• Portal Decisions Demand Collaboration: Can Portals Support It?
  by Steve Gilbert, President, The TLT Group
  Deciding whether or not to have an institution-wide portal system, and successfully implementing one require effective inter-departmental participation and commitment.  The process begins by getting the right people to address the right questions.  

• Portfolio of Change Strategies
  by Steve Gilbert, President, The TLT Group
  This framework can guide you in how to analyze and implement the changes that technology demands in a way that takes into consideration the uniqueness of your institution.
  

• To What End: The Questions to Ask When Designing our Courses
  by Devorah Lieberman, Ph.D., Vice-Provost and Assistant to the President, Portland
  State University
  Whenever the teacher chooses a technology (or any teaching strategy for that matter), if he/she follows it with the question, "To what end am I using this technology at this point in this course," he/she will see if there is a link between the teaching strategy, the student learning outcome and the course objective.

• Using Email and Online Discussion to Enhance Learning
  by Dorothy Frayer, Ph.D, Director, Center for Teaching Excellence., Duquesne University
  E-mail and online discussion enable communication between instructor and student, and among students, outside the usual bounds of place and time.  These technologies can be used to enhance traditional campus-based courses as well as making possible interactive distance learning.

• Using Technology to Create a Safe, Humanistic Classroom
  by Tom Marino, Ph.D., Professor of Anatomy and Cell Biology, Temple University
  Over the past six years I have been in the process of trying to understand what I want to do with my classroom. In the late eighties and early nineties I realized that my classroom was not the place that I really wanted it to be. It was not hospitable. It was not fun. It was not really challenging. It was filled with fear. I vividly recall when this became very real to me.
  

• Using the Web to Foster Critical Thinking Skills
  by Dorothy Frayer, Ph.D., Director, Center for Teaching Excellence, Duquesne University
  Read about five assignments that can enhance students' ability to think critically about information sources and to integrate information into knowledge.

• (Virtual) Teaching, Learning, and Technology Centers
  (V)TLTCs are the newest part of the TLTG's Collaborative Change Network Program.  In addition to articles, Webcast Archives, and other presentations, you'll find excerpts from the TLT Group's (V)TLTC Starter Kit and opportunities to become further involved with (V)TLTC programs.
  

• (Virtual) Teaching, Learning, and Technology Centers: Meeting the Rising Expectations for Information Technology
  by Steven W. Gilbert, President, The TLT Group
  The gap is widening between rising expectations about educational uses of information technology and the too-limited resources available for supporting them at most colleges and universities. Local and inter-institutional Virtual Teaching, Learning, and Technology Centers-(V)TLTC™s-can offer more effective ways of organizing, extending, and augmenting those resources. (V)TLTCs can offer services and materials to help faculty members and academic support professionals keep up with the changing options available for improving teaching and learning with technology-and with changing needs, capabilities, and goals of learners and teachers. 

• Web-based Course Management Systems
  This Resource Cluster is a gateway to information on Web-based Course Management Systems including interviews, slideshows, Webcasts, survey analysis, and examples of Low Threshold Applications.  This and other TLTG Resource Clusters are designed to help institutions understand and evaluate uses of Instructional Technologies on their campuses. 

• Why Bother?
  by Steven W. Gilbert, President, The TLT Group
  We have no clear proof of the major educational benefits from making big investments in academic uses of information technology.  As more faculty members and students are encouraged to use technology for teaching and learning, they expect to accomplish more, and they need more help.  The capacity of academic support services to provide that help usually falls farther behind.  The "Support Service Crisis" gets worse.  So, why bother?  Also see the full text of new "Why Bother?" workshop activity.