What is Information Technology’s impact on the academic experience?

I’ve been scanning the Educause Center for Applied Research (ECAR) Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2007 report. The study, now in its fourth year, measures student preferences for IT in courses. IT is broadly defined in the study, and includes perceptions and use of Course Management Systems (i.e., grading, collaboration, online discussion, etc.), websites, laptop usage, spreadsheet and presentation software, etc.

Of particular interest to me were student responses to how well instructors use IT in their courses (58.2% agreed that, overall, instructors use IT well in their courses; 13.6% strongly disagreed). Despite the fact that perception of IT usage by instructors, for the purposes of this question, is largely associated with the use of CMS software, perception of instructor use of IT appears to be positively correlated with overall academic experience. On the other hand, just 40.4 percent agreed that IT in courses enhanced student engagement.

I would have enjoyed seeing more questions exploring the effectiveness of different media formats (e.g., video, visual content in slides, podcasts) on learning and retention of course concepts and content, but even so, this study has “profound implications for pedagogy” and the changing ways in which technology is used in the classroom.

In addition to the full report, you can view a shorter Key Findings report as well. While students are “generally positive in their views” of IT in courses, most prefer moderate use of IT in courses, with business and engineering students slightly more enthusiastic than others. Some other findings of interest:

• 60.9% agree that IT in courses improves their learning.
• Convenience was the number one perceived benefit of IT in the classroom, outscoring “technology’s support for communicating with classmates and instructors, managing course activities, or improving learning.”

Finally, and no surprise to most I imagine, the study reports that students were clear that technology is not a substitute for face-to-face interaction with faculty. This was further borne out by the fact that “online discussion boards” was ranked the least useful of all CMS features (3.13 out of 5, where 5 = extremely useful). Given what appears to be an increasingly strong advocacy for blended learning programs on some campuses, this indicator of student preference might merit closer scrutiny.

Can They Make Us Do That?

A topic of some relevance to the teaching of Global Business is the different ways countries exercise their power. In my international business classes I sometimes discuss this in the context of regional integration and the power that attends large regional entities. Two relatively recent articles on a ruling against Microsoft highlight this phenomenon.

The Wall St. Journal in “Microsoft Loss In Europe Raises American Fears” minces few words in calling the ruling by the European Commission a stinging defeat for Microsoft (Microsoft was accused of improperly bundling a media player with its operating system and denying competitors information necessary for interoperability). The Journal further suggests that the EU regulatory machine has rewritten the rules for competition in Europe. According to the article, other American firms, including Intel and Rambus, also have reason to be concerned.

Another article from the Economist, “Brussels rules OK; How the European Union is becoming the world’s chief regulator,” further explores this ruling, and contrasts the “cost-benefit analysis” approach of the Americans to the “precautionary principle” employed by the Europeans with regard to regulatory policy. The authors conclude that the balance of power to set global standards is shifting away from the U.S. and toward the EU.  Even major transnational firms like Procter & Gamble are beginning to comply with EU directives. For now…

The growing importance of the Chinese market may soon have both Europe and the U.S. scrambling to comply with yet another global standard. Beijing has been pushing its own telecommunication standards for a while, and last year demanded that a Chinese inscription be added to tires along with the present international symbol. Western firms are reluctant to incur the additional and onerous retooling expense of compliance with this and other standards, but like Microsoft in the EU, may have no choice.

This topic generates good, if sometimes heated, discussion, and challenges my American students to consider the growing clout of other countries and regional entities. It also highlights the cultural and philosophical differences among different countries.

So is MKTG (Thomson / Southwestern) a disruptive textbook innovation?

I’ll be teaching multiple sections of a marketing principles course in the winter and spring, and will give the MKTG text by Lamb, Hair, and McDaniel a serious look. The anecdotal feedback is that this book has carved out significant share in a short time. Certainly Thomson ratcheted up the marketing machine when they launched this book. The usual MO is for the publisher to send an email announcing the new text; with MKTG I received what seems like 3 or 4 postcards, a marketing mock-up of the text with some excerpts, and a strong personal selling effort.

The text itself is certainly a departure: 15-page chapters; glossy paper (the book resembles a magazine in this respect); $50 price tag; perforated tear-out instructor chapter notes, etc. Several of my colleagues have used or are using the text now, and their initial feedback is largely positive.

Is this disruptive? Yes and no, I guess. Like many of the innovations cited by Christiansen, Utterback et al, the price alone might qualify it as innovative, especially in light of the increasing negative publicity textbook prices seem to be generating. (See this recent op-ed piece, Course Requirement: Extortion, by Michael Granof in the New York Times.)

Most disruptive innovations, by definition however, usually come with a trade-off: low price usually means less robust. Is there a similar trade-off here, or is this just another example of how the net and digitization of content—and I believe that Thomson has migrated much of what is taken out of MKTG onto its web site—have changed the basic business model?

The fact that instructors choose texts for students to purchase suggests that sales figures and market share metrics alone might not answer the question. The proof of the innovation in this case lies more with student usage, a more difficult metric to gauge. Will more students actually read MKTG? With the componentization of content, and the proliferation of video, podcasts, and all manner of electronic media substituting for text, how important is the choice of a particular textbook to classroom learning?

Prime Time Women – great piece on segmentation and demographics.

If you’re looking to generate a decent classroom discussion on market segmentation or the use of demographics to identify attractive markets, this Advertising Age Video interview will do nicely. Marti Barletta, author of Prime Time Women, shatters some myths about what is or isn’t an attractive demographic. In particular, she scoffs at the conventional view that the most highly coveted markets are men ages 18 – 24.

According to Barletta, “other than beer and pizza they don’t really buy a lot.” On the other hand, individuals over the age of 50 control 79% of all financial assets, and on a per capita spending basis, spend 2 ½ times what the younger group spends. She punctuates this with the compelling statistic that women in households control 80% or more of household spending.

If you’ve ever taught marketing, you’ve probably had this conversation in your classes. Still, I’m amazed at how narrow the worldview of my students generally is. Barletta has no answer for why corporations with access to the same data continue to largely ignore prime time women, but she believes failure to redress this marketing wrong will impact the bottom line directly: something like 96% of the net population growth in the next ten years will take place in the over-50 age group.

This video is short enough (nine minutes) and sufficiently relevant to enhance a classroom discussion of target market strategies, demographics, household consumer roles, gender, and market segmentation.

INCLASSMEDIA™ – What’s this blog about anyway?

This blog is an attempt to start a conversation about the impact of different media and information content on college instructor effectiveness, student learning, and the overall classroom experience in general. I am not an expert in instructional design or its most recent incarnation, Instruction 2.0, but have had some success illustrating course concepts and generating significant classroom discussion with more visual content, audio, and video.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have launched a business that integrates course and textbook concepts with topical business news. I will not shill for the business here other than to say that you can reach me at marty@inclassmedia.com should you want more information.

Over the past five years teaching college business courses, I have gone from an informal “news” discussion at the start of classes to creating content highlighting course concepts in a specific news context. Students will frequently remark on this part of the class in their course evaluations. Students will also reference “news” discussions in exam essays. While I have not scientifically gauged these responses, it appears that the visual and multimedia presentation of course concepts enhances retention. At the very least, it livens up the classroom discussion.

And now that I am about to adopt my fifth different marketing textbook in five years, I maintain that textbooks—at least those in the disciplines in which I have been teaching—have become commoditized to the extent that publishers will mix and match chapters in an attempt to customize and provide value to instructors. Hence, my interest in ancillary information sources and different media that complement basic course textbooks.

Though my intent with this blog is to identify and hold forth on different media content and formats that map to specific business course topics, I am sure I will meander into the topics of textbook and online content usage in classrooms, the value of ancillaries from publishers, video in the classroom, and others.

Finally, though my teaching experience is 100% in the business disciplines of management and marketing, instructors in other disciplines may find some common issues worth discussing.