TOMORROWS TEACHER

D
epending on your year of
enrolment, understanding the
application and possibilities
of education technology, or Ed Tech,
will vary. For those who enrolled in
2014 it is digital blackboards, paperfree classrooms and e-books on mobile
devices. For those who enrolled in 1994,
it is a level of advancement that would
make Back to the Futures Marty McFly
quake in his self-lacing Nike Air Mags.
Ed Tech is a big bucks business, which
is driving innovation at a heady pace.
A market study published by Future
Source predicts the sector will reach
values of $19bn by 2018, demonstrating
a compound annual growth rate
(CAGR) of eight per cent.
Applications vary wildly, from cloudbased storage to a fully digitized library
and curriculum.
But what is critical to remember is that
this is more than just iPads in classrooms
and remote learning.

Kevin Martin is a technology enthusiast with a

background that spans military, IT and academia.
Combining his expertise, the new Director of Library
Services and Educational Technology Specialist, is
driving a classroom revolution
Since arriving on campus in July
2014, Director of Library Services and
Educational Technology Specialist Kevin
Martin, has been assessing AUDs Ed
Tech in order to benchmark adoption
and drive progress.
Holding a Masters degree in
Information and Learning Technology
and a second in Library Science, his
domain may be the traditional library,
but his task is to gradually transform
AUDs library into a space equipped
with the technology to support the
process of learning. In the classroom, his
task is to ensure that course delivery is

informative, efficient and inline with the

level of technology students interact with
elsewhere in their lives.
Both physical libraries and the concept
of Ed Tech are built on filing systems.
That is, knowing where and how to store
and retrieve knowledge.
The intersection at which education
and technology meet brings a
philosophical element to the table;
posing many questions about where the
responsibility for in-class innovation
lies and how the message of Ed Tech
should be disseminated. Kevin says:
As I studied, I began also to develop

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INTERVIEW

an interest in library work and then

there was a realization that there is a
need for Ed Tech in libraries. But where
does the knowledge of Ed tech live in
an institution? Who shares it out? That
became an area of interest to me.
A NEW SET OF TOOLS

Before any progress can be made, Kevin

is measuring and increasing levels of
information literacy, teaching students
how to search, research and understand
the process of writing. In short: learn
how to use your tools.
Kevin explains: We have 40,001
volumes in our current collection and
these print collections are really good but
they are mostly designed to inspire. Its
the springboard.
What youre seeing is a real shift in
how students work. Today, information
can be accessed from anywhere and
the library is an academic commons.
Its a work space that isnt the cafeteria
and that is important to an academic
institution.
Describing his immediate six-month
task list as the unflashy period, initial
focus will fall on integrating AUD
systems and testing compatibility.
Individual departmental requirements
will be discussed and met: as AUDs
School of Business Administration
phases out print textbooks, he will
ensure vendor relationships exist and
students are equipped with reading
devices to endure their entire course. As
he explains, content delivery is deviceagnostic and therefore content must
meet the student on their chosen device.
As work processes become more
efficient, Ed Tech programs take care of
formatting for example, thus eliminating
the need for a lecture and freeing up
teacher-time for critical thinking.
Technology is really allowing us to
begin to kill the lecture and that is the
most exciting thing happening in Ed
Tech and the broader field of education
right now. Previously, lectures were
the most logical use of time. Now you

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can pre-record the lecture, so students

listen in advance and classroom time
with the teacher isnt spent in a oneway dialogue, but in an interactive
conversation and exchange.
TESTING THE WATER

At the opposite end of the scale, The

Minerva Project is taking Ed Tech
a step further by reforming how the
modern liberal arts education system
achieves it goals.
Founded by Ben Nelson in 2012, the
projects ambition is to use technology
to make education accessible to
the brightest and most motivated
students from around the world
with a pedagogy and curriculum
specifically designed to teach critical
and creative thinking and effective
communication, combined with a
technology platform built in to service

to the science of learning.

Eliminating the requirement for the
physical educational space and extra
curricular, recreational, facilities a
network of global Minerva campuses
will provide the ultimate educational
experience.
The school retains some social and
collaborative learning spaces, but all else
takes place in the ether.
Unlike online learning, which relies
on mass enrolment and often inferior
accreditations Minerva retains a
selective attitude to enrolment and
course provision, designed to compete
with the elite.
Without the need for a physical
environment in which to conduct
classes, Minerva hopes to offer courses
intellectually equivalent to those of
Ivy League schools while charging
around $28,000 for each year of tuition,

but knowing how to really talk, write

and think and using that as an equally
important reason to be hired. That
is the goal for Ed Tech and all of our
education here.
FUTURE LEARNING
COMMUNITIES

including room and board.

While AUDs reasons for integrating
technologically-advanced teaching
methods is not down to its business
plan, it is attributable to a desire to
enhance the educational tools at
students fingertips, and provide a
method through which each student
can build an academic portfolio, in the
cloud. He explains: Whether you are in
traditional subjects such as Engineering
and Architecture or Philosophy, you
should have a capstone project with a
portfolio to understand what you have
just done. So many people go through
their entire degree and come out
unaware of what they have achieved.
Despite the differences,
commonalities remain in the outcome.
Kevin adds: The goal is critical
thinking. Coming out with a skill set
that isnt just I learned about this,

Prior to the 1990s, Ed Tech was a

theory that started and ended with
the idea of isolated home learning and
lessons beamed to students through a
desktop computer. Today, the concept
isnt to remove the community learning
experience, or put it behind glass, but to
create time for face-to-face dialogue.
Ed Tech is about enabling efficient
reference and storage, better
collaboration and more contact, in order
to facilitate more discussion time.
AUDs is about teaching the skills of
critical thinking and getting those skills
into people. So technology now is about
getting us out of the lecture mode and
into the seminar mode because there are
more opportunities for active dialogue.
The pie in the sky vision isnt
just that it is going to take us to this
strange utopia of education, but back to
Aristotle in the forum.
Ed Tech doesnt just question how
courses are taught, but what teaching
is and how we, as humans, respond to
different learning styles and learning
environments.
Kevin elaborates: I did a great deal
of paper reading while growing up and
attending academic institutions. But
that is changing. Slowly, we are seeing
fewer books are being bought but all this
material is still being read.
The goal for 2015 is about
creating demonstrable success and
communicating that to the other schools;
making sure they understand there are
resources to help them do these things
and the creation and addition of the Ed
Tech function and the library role is not
only to coordinate all this, but facilitate
its roll out and support the faculty
members during that process.

As with the Ed Tech industry as a

whole, development and implementation
on campus will be progressive; systems
do not require building, but clarification.
This year, around 10 per cent of AUD
Librarys oldest items will be removed
and the collection updated. More study
spaces will be created by digitizing niche
items in the journal collection and the
librarys own systems will be modernized
to speed up check out and archiving.
And academic innovation beyond
that? Technological evolution over
the last two decades tells me there is
a push for paperless. It isnt just about
more databases and E-books, our 3,000
students printed over 100,000 pages last
semester. Why?
Students should not turn in a single
assignment on paper. That is my goal
as Library Director and Educational
Technology Specialist, Kevin shares,
before concluding: So a paperless
university experience and the entire
academic portfolio and history in the
cloud, stored forever. n

CV
Kevin Martin holds a B.A. in
Anthropology and Ethics, an M.A. in
eLearning Design and Implementation
and a Graduate Certificate in Designing
eLearning Environments from the
University of Colorado, as well as a
TESOL Certificate from Pusan University
of Foreign Affairs. He is also currently a
candidate for the M.L.I.S. at San Jos State
University.

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