Teaching with Technology: May You Live in Interesting Times

Abstract

During the past 10 years, teaching with computer technology, such as e-mail and the Web, has become customary throughout undergraduate economic education. The authors review the literature on the implications for student learning, present specific educational activities that use a number of different computer technologies, and discuss growing problems, such as "cyber-plagiarism," along with suggesting potential solutions. The future of using technology for teaching economics will be the continuation of recent trends: increased portability in the access to instruction and increased opportunities for interaction, including students' interaction with the material and with the instructor and other students.

Comparing e-Learning tools’ success: The case of instructor–student interactive vs. self-paced tools

“…Systems providers have developed different types of e-learning tools that can make the learning process easier and enhance its outcome. Higher education institutions are taking advantage of these elearning tools to design and offer new opportunities for teaching and learning (e.g., Casini, 2003;Goffe & Sosin, 2005;Martins & Kellermanns, 2004;Zhang, 2004;Seo & Woo, 2010;Cho et al, 2009). According to a recent report of International Data Corporation (IDC), the global e-learning market was around USD 17.2 billion in 2008 and was expected to continue growing.…”

Could Attendance at Medical School be improved? A Prospective Study of Medical Education at The University of Liverpool: Study of Attendance at a UK Medical School

“…These twenty-first century advances create questions around the relevance of lectures delivered in the traditional manner. 29,53,56,61 Our study data indicates that attendance is poor when lecture slides are available to students prior to lectures, compared to when unavailable (median 69.2% and 93.3% respectively, p<0.01). This suggests that students believe they can achieve the same level of knowledge from the resources provided regardless of attendance.…”

“…Lectures have been shown to have a positive impact on learning 53,54 and that students will attend lectures if they believe the content will provide additional information to what is already available. 55 If students believe lectures are not a beneficial learning opportunity and that they can access online resources in their own time, then attendance will fall.…”

‘Economics with Training Wheels’: Using Blogs in Teaching and Assessing Introductory Economics

“…Unfortunately, a suitable alternative instrument for student ability could not be identified and therefore an instrumental variables approach could not be used in order to mitigate the multicollinearity problem. However, the finding that online tools have no quantitative effect, or even a negative effect, on student performance is not uncommon (Goffe and Sosin 2005).…”

“…see Embrey 2002;Oravec 2002), and Goffe and Sosin (2005) commented on their potential for use in specifically teaching economics. Quiggin (2006) notes that academic economists enthusiastically adopted blogs as a public good, often as a forum for comment and analysis of current issues.…”