Strategic Alliances For Successful Deployment Of Instructional Technologies

NOTE: The first page of text has been automatically extracted and included below in lieu of an abstract Strategic Alliances for Successful Deployment of Instructional Technologies Introduction Research has shown that TabletPCs enhance the student learning experience1. The College of Engineering at Virginia Tech University launched the TabletPC initiative in 2006. All incoming freshman student are required to purchase a TabletPC for use in class. The TabletPC is used extensively by the faculty members in the freshman classes, but in-class usage reduces by a significant amount in the senior years. While there are some faculty members who use the TabletPC and all its features extensively in class, there are some who are not very comfortable with use of in-class technology. For convenience, we have classified the faculty members into three types of users; Phase 1 users are those who use simple tools, such as Microsoft PowerPoint© without any inking, to teach in class. Phase 2 users are those who use the inking features of the TabletPC to teach in class. Finally, the Phase 3 users are those who used advanced software and features of the TabletPC to teach in class. For instance, faculty members who use DyKnow© to teach in class will be classified as a Phase 3 user. In order to increase faculty usage, the College of Engineering has deployed various strategic alliances with internal and external organizations to the university. maximize adoption of instructional technologies2. According to Rogers, there are five attributes to be considered when it comes to adoption of technology. They are relative advantage, compatibility, trialability, observability, and complexity. Adoption of technology will be more likely if the complexity of the technology is reduced but relative advantage, compatibility, trialability, and observability are maximized. Figure 1 depicts the strategic alliances maintained to increase faculty/student adoption of TabletPCs, Figure 1: Strategies Alliances Used to Promote Adoption of the TabletPC