Thank you, Christine, for the introduction and for all of your work in bringing the Writing in Cyberspace Symposium to GW. I'm happy to welcome all of you here today. We host many meetings at GW, but it is especially nice to host an event sponsored by the Consortium of Universities of the Washington Metropolitan Area.
The topic which you are here to explore today could not be more timely. If you caught the President's State of the Union Speech, squeezed in between coverage of the OJ trial, you know that education in general - and the role of technology in education in particular - were prominent topics. If Clinton's challenge to connect every classroom and library by the Year 2000 is met, institutions for higher learning such as ours had better be prepared for technologically sophisticated students. Are we working toward that at GW? Yes, we are. Do we have a long way to go? Yes, we do. And the challenge is not so much in the wiring of all classrooms and dorms, although that is not trivial, but in working on the very topic you will address today: how to best use technology to enhance instruction and learning in a way that is relevant to the changing world we live in.
I had to chuckle when I read a quote from a social studies teacher in reference to every student having a computer in the classroom. He said, "How does this change the way I teach - except that I have to stand in the back to make sure they're not playing solitaire?" I chuckled, but it points out the very real problem with the transition from just having the technology, to using the technology to enhance the educational experience.
Of course, some universities are ahead of others in this area. Perhaps you caught the article in the Washington Post about the University of Minnesota at Crookston. It used to be a two-year agricultural school with the nickname Moo U. Of course they meant real cows, not MUD Object Oriented. Anyway, the Chancellor decided that, to survive, the university needed to become a four-year campus focused on technology and self-directed learning. To do this, he outfitted every student and faculty member with a laptop. He and a few buddies unloaded a truck full of laptops at 2:30 in the morning on a September day in 1993, and by 5 PM that day they had 90 percent of them distributed. Needless to say, a culture change was underway at Moo U. I bring this up to get back to the point about the transition from just having the tevchnology to using the technology in a meaningful way. I'm skipping some details here, although I will tell you that the school has fewer than 1,200 fulltime students, but in fact after three years a survey indicated that over 80% of the faculty responding said thatthe computers have stimulated changes in their taching approaches and class material. And enrollment is up 22%. Given that only 20% of the faculty members were excited at the outset, 20% were hostile, and 60% were on the fence, I find a great deal of hope and promise in this story.
Like that Chancellor in Minnesota, you are taking strides outside of the norm. And you're doing it in a way that may serve as a more realistic model for how others might approach this issue. When I think about moving GW forward in this area, I have to think of it on a scale as this: People in the same or aligned disciplines working together to determine how best to use technology to move forward toward measurable outscomes.
I commend you for being here. I'm sure that the symposium will be both productive and fun for all of you, and I hope that you'll find GW a welcoming host. Thank you.