On-line Education

Great question!  I think that if the link I posted on Facebook today comes true, Student Affairs professionals will be forced to use technology in new and creative ways to add value to new and traditional learning.  Currently, if an SA office does not have a staff member who is a "resident geek/nerd" and knows how to use this stuff, your staff is at the mercy of your local IT department, whose plate is probably too full of important "university tech" projects, or students who work with you less than 20 hours a week, and may not have the full experience to give you what you need.  Couple this the exponential use of social media technologies and teaching our students "how" to use them properly, these types of "SA-IT" folks will have to come from current SA professionals, since no IT person would agree to be paid on a SA type salary. 

I collaborate with other SA folks in our division on integrating technology throughout the year and we share our thoughts at regional and national conferences on our best practices.  My hope is that blogs like this one, Swift Kick, and even mine can disseminate this information in a fun, easy to read manner.

In the end, I think that whatever "online" academic content is created, it will be distributed by the college's IT department, outside of our division, and our control.  It will be up to us in SA to create the mechanism for new student engagement and community building and I hope to be part of that process wherever I am!

I also think it has to do with the "customer service" model utilized by your IT division. 

Some models just accept project requests and check them off the list in an IT division.  Other models  have IT staff assigned to each division with the goal of at least one person on their staff becoming an "expert" in emerging technology in the field.  In my opinion, this is the first step toward the scenario posted above.

Does anyone out there have technology staff becoming well versed in emerging technologies in student affairs, even if they still report through IT?

If your office does not have a resident tech expert and IT is too busy to train and educate your office, it might be a good idea to befriend a librarian. I've notice many times librarians are the campus explorers of new technologies and they are more than happy to help and educate others. And they probably would give you more time than your IT dept.

Ed this line "these types of "SA-IT" folks will have to come from current SA professionals, since no IT person would agree to be paid on a SA type salary" is sad but true :-(

In response to the original question: Yes, definitely. Some institutions like UConn and Duke have entire student affairs IT departments. Some institutions like the University of West Florida have individuals appointed as the division leader/expert in technology. And some institutions also have some staff that focus on student affairs-related online education (Leslie Dare at NCSU jumps to mind as a great example and potential resource).

I agree that figuring out how to pay a student affairs technologist is challenging. We never discussed it or advertised it but I made a whole lot more money than my (more experienced and educated) peers in residence life when I worked in a housing department as the resident computer geek.

jmcgover, I recently did a session for about 100 housing professionals on moving training into the 21st Century (ie online/tech supported education) and about 10% in the audience was using some kind of technology in staff or student training (wiki, podcast, short course, screen capture, etc.)

Growing need.

-Josh
Senior Director, ACUHO-I

I recently did a session for about 100 housing professionals on moving training into the 21st Century

-guest_guest

Hey Jim,

What content did you cover? I think there's a lot of value in seeing what everyone is covering and try to come to some standards. Though, in terms of technology, standards don't last long. Myspace yesterday, Facebook today, Twitter tomorrow...

It was about a year ago when I wrote this essay on Student Affairs and Technology: To Boldly Go. One of the key issues in my opinion is that technology competency is not a core curriculum component for most student affairs graduate programs. Technology needs to be a central focus from grad school student to practitioner so that it isn't seen as an "extra" line item.

By the way, as someone who has a background in IT, I've often said that I find fulfillment via my student affairs work, but I pay the bills with my technology consulting ;-)

Thank you so much for everyone's feedback. I look forward to view the results of the Tweet Poll posted a couple of weeks ago.

I read this a couple of weeks ago, and today have some info. Staff, grad students and student trainers used the following 'technologies' today while engaged in training. Internet websites, Web 2.0 apps, iTunes, Facebook!, online video (YouTube, Podcast), databases, and client/server apps were all used.  Not Twitter!  No IM!  And we are soon to move to a CMS for our web content so some training is going to happen there.  It would appear that we do not need to support technology being used in training, except in terms of being more creative in its use.  Where I think we need to do some work is with Joe Student.  S/he is NOT the tech saavy generation we all think they are. When I asked a group of students where they rated themselves with computer technology for example, they, for the most part, rated themselves as "almost expert".  But when I asked what IPV6, Client/Server, Cloud Computing, NAS (and more) were, or if they could build a web page, or a database, or a spread sheet that interacts with external data, there were a lot of blank stares.  My sense is we need to do more with students, and much much more with SA professionals. If we know the technology better, we can find solutions using technology, and encourage students to try to find ways to get work done using it.  IT does not use technology, they keep it running for us.  The creativity in how it is used, belongs to us in SA.  So, we have to keep current.  And for a geezer like me... it's hard to keep up with!  Good luck on all your startups! 

To follow up on this, here are the poll results asking SA Pros "If Their Office Has An Employed Technology Expert" > http://twtpoll.com/gtt081