What would you ask university students about technology in their learning?

Tomorrow is Iowa State University’s first-ever symposium for the new ComETS group here on campus. Modeled after a similar group at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, ComETS is an attempt to bring together all of the folks at the university who care about technology integration into one place. George Siemens from the University of Manitoba is our headliner; he’s doing a morning workshop and an afternoon keynote for us. Other events on the schedule include affinity group meetings and ‘lightning strike’ sessions on interesting technologies.

To conclude the symposium, I’m moderating a panel of students that will be discussing how they think about technology in their personal and academic lives. I’ve set up a wiki page where we’re generating questions for the students. If you’d like to add a question, please do!

I’ll probably be live-blogging George’s keynote and/or workshop tomorrow. Stay tuned at my Twitter feed for more details…

Comments

[Brian Reich]

1.

I tried to post to the wiki and it wouldn't work. Forgive me for leaving a comment here. I think the question(s) that you want to ask relate not to technology as much as how they use it. What does their information consumption look like on a 24-hour basis (what technologies do they use, how do they use them, and what for?)? What information do they seek, and why? We can track technology all we want, but understand what motivates usage is how we will understand what is needed to make change happen.

[Dave]

2.

One thing that all universities need to deal with is how open learning will affect them in the near future (5 year time span). The time will come where open learning that is accredited is coming, and where students can earn degrees at their speed, not the speed of lecturer or classroom schedule.