Re: tkt8763-01: Massachusetts Leads High Tech States;Mississippi Trails (fwd)

["Shannon Martin" <smartin@colled.msstate.edu>]

I'm sorry that this is a bit late.  I have been having a world of difficulty with my e-mail lately.  It seems as though someone created another account with my same name and my mail was bouncing all over the place, some never to return.  Anyways...

Upon reading this article, I feel that it is pretty accurate, and here is my reasoning...

I can only speak on what I see and what I know, and mostly, that is my world here at Mississippi State University.  I have a few examples which may demonstrate why I feel that the article was accurate.  First of all, when each department is doing the budget, towards the end of the fiscal year, most often monies for equipment (i.e. computers, scanners, etc.) are put as a low priority.  For example, our department was alloted a whole $2000 for new equipment and we have 6 faculty members, 3 graduate assistants, one secretary and one work study student.  The majority of our machines are barely running 166 MHz.  And 2 of the machines are 486s.  This does not make it easy to be efficient, let alone technologically advanced.  The second example I have is that for the most part, although it is slowly changing, it has been university policy not to pay for internet/distance learning courses.  If we are to be a technologically advanced university, I feel that this would be a wonderful step towards that goal.  But for now, we are to be in a classroom in order to have courses reimbursed under tuition remission, and we are to pay for any other types of classes we would like to take.

In closing, I can say that we have a lot of advancement to do to catch up with the rest of the u.s., let alone the world, but it's something that we can accomplish if we change some priorities around.

******* TKT 8763 Seminar in Planning for Instructional Technology  *******
   To subscribe or unsubscribe, e-mail to "majordomo@msstate.edu"
   with the message "subscribe tkt8763-01" or "unsubscribe tkt8763-01".
       Subscribers may post messages to "tkt8763-01@msstate.edu".