Digital Democracy in Higher Education Bridging the Digital Divide.pdf

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Digital Democracy in Higher Education:
Bridging the Digital Divide
by Susana Juniu
Educators seeking to integrate technology into the classroom frequently lack technological expertise and
pedagogical preparation (Budin 1999). They often feel overwhelmed by the twofold challenge of keeping
abreast of a rapidly changing technological environment on the one hand and of finding pedagogical
strategies that allow for technology to be effectively integrated with their course content on the other.
Meanwhile, in relative isolation from the educators who face this challenge in their teaching, university
administrators and information technology (IT) departments struggle to provide the most appropriate
resources to support classroom integration. 
University constituents must cooperate in a community of learning to find new ways to teach and learn with
technology and to examine the role of emerging technologies in higher education. They must clearly define
their respective roles and responsibilities in this process in order for technology to be integrated with content
in a meaningful and appropriate way. All too often, however, differing attitudes about the role that technology
should play in the classroom, power structures in higher education, and insufficient communication among
the various groups present obstacles to true technological and educational development. 
In this article, I will discuss what Mitcham (1990) refers to as different "ways of being with technology" based
on my experiences as a faculty user of technology and my conversations with colleagues and other
professionals at different educational forums. These encounters have led me to question the roles and
responsibilities of educators and support staff in order to understand the implications of technology
integration in the teaching and learning process. I will then offer recommendations for how institutions may
achieve a more productive community of learning based on a democratic approach to faculty development
programs. 
Ways of Being with Technology
While experts widely recognize the importance of integrating technology into the classroom, segments of a
given academic community frequently disagree with the extent to which this can and should be
accomplished. Some educators may be strong advocates of technological innovation while others may more
reluctant in accepting technology as an integral part of the learning process, often questioning whether
alternative methods of teaching can increase students' academic achievement. These divergent reactions
and concerns have thus created a continuum that represents various attitudes towards technology. 
Mitcham (1990) indicates different "ways of being with technology" by designating three groups: those who
are suspicious of technology, those who are more ambiguous about technology, and those who strongly
promote technology. Similarly, Milliron and Miles (2000) illustrate a continuum of perspectives towards
technology—with cynics or skeptics on one end, a middle range of educators they refer to as "the reasoned
center," and true believers on the other end. Such different vantage points, they argue, have resulted in a
discordant discourse among educators about the role of technology in education. 
One group feels that technology alone will not enhance or change education. For this group, "technical
information is not true wisdom" (Mitcham 1990). This group includes educators who have reluctantly moved
from being "techno-enthusiasts" to being more skeptical about technology (Healy 1998) and faculty members
with extensive knowledge of pedagogical models and teaching methods who question the role of technology
as the solution to problems such as low achievement in education. They believe that hardware alone will not
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enhance learning. For them, incorporating instructional changes, fostering students' critical thinking skills, and
possessing strong constructivist pedagogies must always be prerequisites for the use of computer technology
in instruction. For this group, in short, questions of pedagogy must always precede questions of technological
integration. 
Another group of educators believes that computers can engage and motivate students to learn more, and
thus it advocates the use of technology within the classroom. For this group, pedagogical principles are not
necessarily irrelevant, but they are less sharply defined at the outset such that the educators in this group are
more willing to modify their teaching strategies with different tools in different circumstances. By the same
token, their willingness to adopt computer technology does not necessarily lead them to perceive such
technology as suitable to all teaching or learning scenarios; rather, they are more inclined to judge a given
tool in terms of its relative merits in a given educational context and to reconsider their initial assumptions in
light of other options. This group of faculty users corresponds to Milliron and Miles's notion of the "reasoned
center" (2000). 
A third group views technology as the key answer to the problems in education and an indispensable means
of school transformation and reform. These "techno-promoters" usually believe that students learn faster,
better, and more extensively with computers (Cuban 2001). This non-academic group is more likely to include
members of the information technology division, professionals with expertise in instructional design, project
management, and the newest technological tools, and administrators who must work effectively in support of
their academic colleagues for the improvement of teaching and learning in higher education (Fletcher 2002).
This scenario creates a fragmented environment and disenfranchised groups. Figure 1 represents the
distribution of knowledge and power as it relates to access to and decisions regarding technology integration.
The relationship among the groups is linear and sometimes hierarchical. These structures too often work in
apparent isolation, failing to support each others' efforts; there is little association among pedagogues, faculty
users, and the IT department. At the same time, these constituents are pressured by the university
administrators who expect new e-learning initiatives to attain high quality teaching and learning. These
expectations in higher education and the pedagogical shifts largely driven by the new information technology
have created tensions between the support and the academic communities (Fletcher 2004).
The Dialogue Process: Community of Learning
Today, IT departments of colleges and universities already have initiatives in place to provide support to
faculty members who wish to integrate technology into their courses. These initiatives are often forums of
discussion, such as teaching and learning roundtables and advisory board groups or more specialized
workshops that establish proficiencies with regard to a given technology tool. Yet these initiatives are not
always enough to effect changes in teaching practice. They often fail to provide the hands-on experience
necessary to integrate new technologies with course content or otherwise focus only on short term solutions
to individual problems regarding the use of the technology itself. For faculty users it is not sufficient either to
discuss technology integration in generalized terms or to attend a show-and-tell presentation by IT staff in
order to acquire the knowledge necessary to infuse technology in their courses. Rather, what is most needed
is a more holistic approach that combines practical knowledge of technology tools with a pedagogical
understanding of how such technology can support problem solving and enhance collaborative learning. 
Such an approach in turn requires that educators adopt the same collaborative ethos that they seek to instill
in their students. Sustained dialogue among all the university constituents could foster exchange of ideas in a
community of learning and allow all to express their needs and be actively involved in their professional
development. To facilitate better understanding of the needs of each unit, all involved need to feel that their
voices are heard and understood. The groups must find common ground to understand situational differences
and to be more receptive to these differences (Fletcher 2004).
A circular model of discussion based on the notion of community of learning, as seen in Figure 2, would have
each group interacting directly with the others. In this model, each group would have its own key contributions
to make with regard to effective technology integration in the classroom. For example, the pedagogues would
play a more active role by providing the faculty users and the technologists with theory on new pedagogical
strategies such as designing curriculum units that blend project-based learning, group collaboration, and
student-centered learning practices; they would also share their ideas regarding the integration of technology
with constructivist approaches to teaching and learning. In turn, the IT division would contribute technical
support and knowledge of new applications, offering consideration of how these applications could be utilized
with the theories and strategies established by the pedagogues. Finally, the faculty users would bring their
in-depth knowledge and understanding of course content, exploring the extent to which this content lends
itself to such pedagogical approaches and technological applications. Such a process of communication
would be continuous and reciprocal among all the groups involved. 
This continuous dialogue and exchange of experience and knowledge can result in a more equal distribution
of power, knowledge, and support. The model of communication would no longer be hierarchical but
democratic, one in which participants are connected to one another through trust and mutual obligation
(Lesser and Storck 2001). In support of this approach, Lockwood comments, "Democratic professional
development relies heavily on teachers' knowledge and experience to construct meaningful experiences that
will address whatever weaknesses they have—just as learning for understanding pulls directly from students'
experiences and prior knowledge to build a line of inquiry. This type of educational development requires a
school climate in which adults can work collaboratively and trust one another enough to reveal areas in which
they need additional knowledge or work" (2002, "Democratic Professional Development"). The circular model
proposed here creates just such a democratic environment, promoting dialogue and peer interaction similar
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to Freire's "culture circles" (Heaney 2001) or Mallory and Thomas's (2003) study circle model (Exhibit 1).
Most importantly, this social practice will facilitate an understanding of each other's responsibility in the
process of education. 
This mode of dialogue is used by Teaching and Learning for Educational Needs with Technology (TALENT),
a series of workshops funded by a Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers to Use Technology (PT3) grant, to
prepare teacher candidates at California State University to address the digital needs of diverse populations.
This program utilizes a "learning community" model to create links between university supervisors, K-12
master teachers, and teacher candidates as they plan and implement examples of effective technology use in
K-12 classrooms. The program thus seeks to reduce the barriers between the traditional roles of teacher,
student, and supervisor by promoting simultaneous professional development in which all constituents can
share their experiences and strategies about teaching with technology. At the start of the program, the master
teachers, university supervisors, site administrators, and student teachers all participate in an orientation
session that introduces them to new tools and technologies. Each learning community then discusses their
plans, goals, and activities for technology implementation while closely collaborating with one another as well
as with the TALENT support staff. One group, for example, developed a series of hands-on-lessons
incorporating PowerPoint, Alpha Smart, and the Internet that were subsequently used by the teacher
candidates in their own teaching. To further expand opportunities for collaborative learning among program
participants, these learning communities also kept logs of their work and documented their projects including
videotaped lessons, lesson plans, and other resources (Chiero, Sherry, Bohlin, and Harris 2003; Chiero and
Sherry 2004). When professional development becomes transformed from a top-down process to a genuine
opportunity for mutual learning and dialogue across professional boundaries, the barriers to effective
technology implementation can be significantly overcome. 
Putting Thought into Action: Roles and Responsibilities
Higher education institutions show their commitment to the transforming uses of technology by providing
technical and design support as well as the technological infrastructure to support teaching, learning,
research, and administrative activities. These institutions usually provide in-service training to their faculty,
but many still utilize traditional modes of delivery in their workshops or faculty development programs. Instead
of providing faculty members with one-time workshops or discussion groups that focus on individual
problems, ongoing educational development should encourage active learning experiences that resemble
students' learning experiences. Universities should implement educational development by creating an
environment where faculty members are active, collaborative participants in learning communities that
encourage innovative uses of technology through hands-on experience. 
One alternative to training workshops that could be easily integrated in a community of learning is the
project-based learning (PBL) experience. PBL, a problem-oriented, collaborative learning process focused on
the learner (Moursound 1999), has been widely used in teaching to facilitate problem-solving activities among
learners. It creates a learning environment that promotes learning by doing, constructing, reflecting, and
visualizing; facilitates problem-solving activities; and provides educators with an opportunity to learn from a
student's perspective. 
The PBL approach to learning thus offers the potential for faculty members and IT staff themselves assume
the role of collaborative learners within a given training program. Just as students in this model work together
to find solutions to "real world" problems, so too can pedagogues, faculty users, and technologists work
together on the "real world" problem of how to find the most effective combinations of pedagogy, course
content, and technological tools in specific learning situations. In these programs, faculty participants would
not only learn how to use software tools such as Access, Excel, or PowerPoint but would consult with one
another and with IT staff more intensively to discover how such tools can promote problem-solving and
critical thinking skills. Moreover, as all participants engage in activities that simulate the real-life experience of
students in the classroom, they would each be able to offer more focused contributions from their own
respective areas of expertise; the final product of such a program would be a learning project, or series of
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learning projects, designed through such collaboration. In this way, all participants would "learn from
technology" rather than receiving information from the computer (Jonassen 2000). 
Universities such as Montclair State University (MSU) have used a PBL-based community of learning model
to provide faculty members and staff with an opportunity to learn from the students' perspective in a
collaborative environment. The focus of the MSU model was to engage the participants in authentic hands-on
experience that turned them into students and to stimulate discussion and thought that would ultimately lead
to experiencing technology through an instructional model that blended PBL with digital tools. In this case the
initial problem-based scenario required that faculty and staff participants create a multimedia proposal for
improving public relations between MSU and the surrounding community; after participants worked together
with IT staff to achieve this goal, they then worked together to develop ideas for how PBL could be combined
with various technology tools in their own respective courses (Exhibit 2). In this case PBL not only allowed
participants to gain technology skills through collaborative activity with one another and with support staff, but
it also helped them to apply this experience to the "problem" of how to find the best balance of technology
and pedagogy in their teaching. 
Conclusion 
There is a need to assist faculty users as they integrate the use of computers into the curriculum while
confronting the pressure of adopting new pedagogical methods that make extensive use of these
technologies (Budin 1999). Faculty users can begin to make themselves more comfortable with new
technology and, in turn, better able to do the same for their students by developing a partnership of learning
to determine pedagogical uses of emerging technologies in the classroom; such a partnership should be
based on dialogue that "focuses on the educational task at hand, identifying barriers and obstacles to its
success, and solves problems in productive ways" (Lockwood 2002). Through dialogue and collaboration, the
university community can face the difficulties of adopting new pedagogical models for integrating technology
into the curriculum.
The circular model of discussion and interaction allows for more integrative work across university
departments in which each constituent is a co-learner and a co-contributor to the construction of knowledge
as well as a participant in activities that trigger the dialogue process. This model fosters collaboration among
educators and staff who normally never interact as co-workers, and the opportunity to work together enables
them to share knowledge across their various fields of expertise (Chiero, Sherry, Bohlin, and Harris 2003). In
turn, by experiencing collaboration through problem-based scenarios, constituents can learn more fully from
the perspective of the student while becoming more focused towards the effective implementation of
technology in specific pedagogical contexts. It is necessary that the various units in the academic community
bear the responsibility and the commitment to creating these opportunities for collaboration. 
According to Paolo Freire, to teach is to move from being a spectator to being an active participant in the
democratic process of making decisions, arguing, and discussing ideas (Heaney 2001). Knowledge is a key
element in having a powerful voice and control over decisions regarding the implementation of new
technologies in education. Educators are models to students, and to be models of innovation, they
themselves need to actively experience educational innovation in their own training. 
[This article was modified from a presentation at the SITE-Society for Information Technology and Teacher
Education international conference in Atlanta, GA, March 3, 2004.]
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COPYRIGHT AND CITATION INFORMATION FOR THIS ARTICLE
This article may be reproduced and distributed for educational purposes if the following attribution is included in the document: 
 
Note: This article was originally published in Innovate (http://www.innovateonline.info/) as: Juniu, S. 2005. Digital democracy in higher
education: Bridging the digital divide. Innovate 2 (1). http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=75 (accessed April 24,
2008). The article is reprinted here with permission of the publisher, The Fischler School of Education and Human Services at Nova
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Southeastern University.
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