COLLOQUY

It is wrong to blame Microsoft for being true to its nature. It was Abraham Maslow who talked about how having only a hammer leads to seeing every problem as a nail. All businesses exist in a worldview of their hammers/products for which they vigorously look to see possible nails/uses for the same. Microsoft is better than most in this if for no other reason than that they have so many more tools at their disposal.

It is up to us to envision the future we want as educators and then demand from the world the tools to make this world come about. I have been working with individuals at a number of institutions looking at how they might created a more "wired school" but rarely do they have a clear picture of just how they want the new system to work or what they need it to do.

"Technology," be it of the hardware or software variety starts with a wetware vision. What would an 'anywhere, anytime' learning environment look like? How would it work? Once we are comfortable with such questions and the answers that arise there from, we can turn to Microsoft or any other vendor to use and develop the tools we want to build the future we design. If we lack the will to design our own vision, we shall have no right to criticize or confront those who do.

In today's academic environment, the driving force for tomorrow's campus has not usually been the faculty. It is more likely to rest with a driven administrator. As we approach the new millenium there are still far to many faculty who don't, can't, or won't use even e-mail let alone the wider range of possibilities available today.

In the past, academics could survive only as experts in their field with little if any training or preparation in how to teach or educate others. Fortunately, the classes they would soon head as teachers looked and operated the same as they classes they had occupied as students. This is no longer the case.

Today's faculty and tomorrow's need not only learn all they can about pedagogy but they also need to learn about imagineering -- creating a vision for the future and learning how to make that vision a reality. Perhaps the problem has been an over-emphasis on the technological what's and how's and a lack of emphasis on the why's and to what ends.

In learning about Microsoft's 'academics' I cannot help but wonder if they have as yet brought on board some educational imagineers? Not those who are at the cutting edge of technological theory, design, and development, but rather some of us who want to envision and design a new learning paradigm rather than try to just adjust and react to changing tools for an old one.

-- Craig P. Donovan, Assistant Prof. at Kean University (posted 4/27, 10:51 a.m., E.D.T.)

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