ompared with that of the past 100 years, the rate of change occurring in society is unprecedented as there have been unparalleled increases in new technology (Berge, 2000). Peter Drucker has proclaimed a major change in education in the next 50 years is due to the growth of technology (de los Santos, 2001). And “nothing in the history of humankind had permeated every aspect of life and culture as deeply and as rapidly as have the computer technology and the global network of the internet” (Nasseh, 2000, p. 217).

The learning college is a relatively new concept, but it is built on long-established values in the community college. We know that the learning college places a high level of importance on quality teaching for the intent of helping students make connections to their learning. “If the concept of the learning college cannot come to full fruition in the community college, the community college we know today may cease to exist, and the community college we dream of for the future may never come to be” (O’Banion, 1997a, xvi).

Community college administrators are taking notice of the importance of these important concepts. Community college presidents realize the role distance education and technology are playing in today’s community college. In a study conducted by Milliron and Miles, almost all of the presidents (96%) surveyed believed that the trend toward information technology will continue. In addition, 95% thought training faculty to use information technology will be an essential part of staff development, and 87% thought the cost of obtaining and maintaining technology will be key with governing boards (Milliron & Miles, 2000). The continued leadership of the League for Innovation in the Community College, through the Learning College Summit, Leadership Abstracts, and the vanguard institutions shows that the learning college principles are alive and well in the community colleges. This vitality is further supported by the growth of institutions using the CCSSE to examine student engagement.

The learning college is based on six key principles (O’Banion, 1997b):

• The learning college creates substantive change in individual learners.
• The learning college engages learners as full partners in the learning process, with learners assuming primary responsibility for their own choices.
• The learning college creates and offers as many options for learning as possible.
• The learning college assists learners to form and participate in collaborative learning activities.
• The learning college defines the roles of learning facilitators by the needs of the learners.
• The learning college and its learning facilitators succeed only when improved and expanded learning can be documented for its learners.

All of these principles can be impacted by the use of technology. For example, when looking at the substantive change we see that “technology is being used in many new and exciting ways to enhance student learning” (Boggs, 2000, p. 47). In recent years computers have become an indispensable item in our daily lives, and educational institutions are actively utilizing the Internet as a method to reach learners. Lim (2000) predicts the Internet will be the most popular delivery method of distance education in the future. The learning college principle of creating and offering many options for learning as possible is demonstrated by the continued growth of online and hybrid instruction in Illinois. The Illinois Virtual Campus (2005) reported that Illinois colleges and universities had 93,715 online enrollments during the Spring/Winter 2005 term. This is an increase of 24,683 enrollments (36%) from the 69,032 enrollments reported for the Spring/Winter 2004 term. Furthermore, the concepts of the learning college and instructional technology can be tied together by the words of Terry O’Banion, who said, “The learning college places learning first and provides educational experiences for learners anyway, anyplace, anytime” (O’Banion, 1996).

Moraine Valley Community College. MVCC provided learning challenge grants to assist faculty to enhance student learning through the use of technology and interactive experiences. These opportunities lead to the development of a virtual college, showcasing the institutions online class delivery. These grants also helped lead to the development of essential support services in a virtual format that included advisement and registration, textbook purchases, library resources, and tutoring. With the development of the Online Student Orientation and Registration web site, students have access to a self-paced, interactive, Internet-based module that supports learning about college programs, services, and registration processes.

Cascadia Community College. At CCC an ePortfolio system was implemented to provide a systematic and organized collection of student work documenting a student’s efforts, progress or achievement of an intended outcome. The ePortfolios serve as a form of assessment that seeks to measure a student’s skills or knowledge in a subject area. The ePortfolio allows students to document personal educational development and learn and practice technical skills.

CCC students are first introduced to the ePortfolio in one of three classes (College Strategies, Study Strategies, or Careers in Information Technology) during their first year. During this term students begin to create their ePortfolio and then are expected to add artifacts to their ePortfolio throughout their time at Cascadia.

Illinois Community College Online. Grant opportunities allowed for Elgin Community College, Illinois Central College, Kankakee Community College, and Southwestern Illinois College to collaborate on the development of online resources to support hybrid instruction of medical laboratory technician (MLT) courses. Each institution developed specific content pieces and shared them with the partner institutions. As a follow up to the grant, Kankakee Community College proceeded to complete the development of materials and courses to facilitate their offering all of the program coursework in an online format. Students from outside the district can participate in the program, completing coursework online and performing their laboratory work at their local hospitals. This was made possible due to the MLT director establishing partnerships with these facilities.

The Community College of Baltimore County. CCBC determined that their faculty should be trained about the pedagogy of online teaching. To address this need they created the Virtual Academy, which is an intensive training program with outcomes tied to the creation of an online course. The academy has evolved since its development to include delivery in different formats including hybrid and online versions. During the course the faculty becomes proficient in the pedagogy of online learning and demonstrate the best practices of online instruction. They also assess their personal learning and teaching styles and evaluate the traditional course in light of that assessment.

When looking at what needs to be done to move forward with technology and learning college principles, there are a series of questions that need to be asked:

1. How does your college train faculty and staff to make the best use of technology?
2. How are colleges helping students develop the capacity to learn in multiple formats?
3. How is your college using technology to promote help students be prepared for the real world?

Training faculty and staff. As institutions, we need to make sure that we provide more than instruction on using a tool, but to use the tool effectively. Providing instruction or grouping faculty into interdisciplinary groups to encourage natural faculty dialog about a specific tool/approach are a beginning.

Methods used by colleges to address training include:

• Making technology use an element of the tenure granting process
• Providing grants or release time to learn new tools
• Providing training programs that encompass short term immediate training or longer academies
• Creating a special computer lab or multimedia center for faculty, staffed with specialists in software and/or instructional design
• Linking faculty together for peer-to-peer assistance

Helping students in multiple formats. At community colleges there is not a prototypical student. Because our students come with a wide range of experiences, institutions need to examine methods for how to present information to students in different formats including online. A few approaches include:

• Hybrid courses – models the real world for students, helps faculty move forward slowly.
• Put computer skills into non-computer classes – competency embedded in learning.
• Students influence faculty by demanding what they get in other classes (e.g. on-line components).
• The benefits of the technology may be intangible as well as showing up in measured outcomes. Also look for long-term lifetime learning kind of use.
• In KCC’s college success course they are presented with information about e-mail, the learning resource center and can have the course delivered in an online or hybrid model.

Technology and the real world. Just about everyone agrees that computer literacy is now a foundational skill with reading, writing and math. However, while computer literacy is important, an even more important area is information literacy. With this we are referring to how to seek, find, evaluate and use information effectively. To address these needs many schools are creating courses to address these needs. At KCC, there is a two-credit hour course on library and information literacy in addition to an component that is part of the college’s college success skills course, which is recommended to all first-time full-time students.

McClenney (n.d.) discussed some of the lessons that were learned during the initial learning college project. Some of these insights need to be kept in mind as the efforts to infuse technology and the learning college principles into the institution. She points out that the journey is long, that there will be multiple tasks, and there will be challenges that are conceptually and politically complex. This is especially true as institutions are faced with budget shortfalls and funding cuts from state and federal agencies. Creativity (e.g., grants and outside partnerships) and planning (e.g., technology plans) are essential to being able to be able to balance the technology and fiscal needs of the institution.

She points out that innovations and projects abound, but they sometimes lack unifying goals or principles. The work to expand technology across the curriculum and the institution needs to have representation at all levels of the institution. The college needs to identify, within its yearly priorities, accrediting projects or technology plans and make sure that there are not conflicting efforts underway. Some of the Vanguard Learning Colleges are attempting to create a common set of principles, goals, and values focused on learning to help collect, unify, and focus college initiatives.

Finally, McClenney says that the “commitment to become a Learning College can best be viewed as a long, arduous, and exciting journey to realign institutional priorities, policies, programs, practices, and personnel to focus on learning as the primary business of the college.”

We see that technology should be one of our foci on learning. Administrators should strive to help students integrate technology into their learning. By doing this we will not only improve our students and our institutions, but also our future.

References

Berge, Z. L. (2000). Why not reengineer traditional higher education? In Petrides, L. A. (ed.). Case Studies on Information Technology in Higher Education: Implications for Policy and Practice. (pp. 209-216). Hershey, PA: Idea Group.

Boggs, G. R. (2000). Thoughts on teaching & learning in community colleges. Community College Journal, 71(1), 47.

de los Santos, G. E. (2001, November). Access in the information age: Community Colleges bridging the digital divide. Presented at the annual Conference on Information Technology: League for Innovation in the Community College, Minneapolis, MN.

Illinois Virtual Campus (2005). Distance Education Enrollments - Illinois Colleges and Universities: Spring/Winter 2005. Retrieved November, 15, 2005, from http://www.ivc.illinois.edu/pubs/enrollment/Spring_05.html

Lim, C. K. (2000). Computer self-efficacy, academic self-concept and other factors as predictors of satisfaction and future participation of adult learners in web-based distance education. (Doctoral Dissertation, Florida Atlantic University, 2000). Dissertation Abstract International, 61(2) 581A.

Nasseh, B. (2000). Forces of change: The emergence of a knowledge society and new generations of learners. In Petrides, L. A. (Ed.). Case Studies on Information Technology in Higher Education: Implications for Policy and Practice. (pp. 217-227). Hershey, PA: Idea Group.

McClenney, K. (n.d.). Learning College Project: Lessons Learned. Retrieved November 1, 2005, from http://www.league.org/league/projects/lcp/lessons_learned.htm

Milliron, M. D., & Miles, C. L. (2000). Seven signs on the road ahead for community colleges. In Milliron, M.D. & Miles, C.L. (Eds.), Taking a Look @ Technology, Learning & the Community College (pp. 1-45). Mission Viejo, CA: League for Innovation in the Community College.

O’Banion, T. (1996). Learning communities, learning organizations, and learning colleges. Leadership Abstracts, 9(8), Retrieved November 1, 2005, from http://www.league.org/publication/abstracts/leadership/labs0896.htm

O’Banion, T. (1997). A learning college for the 21st century. Phoenix, AZ: Oryx Press.

O’Banion, T. (1997). The purpose, process, and product of the learning college revolution in the community college. Leadership Abstracts, 10(7), Retrieved November 1, 2005, from http://www.league.org/publication/abstracts/leadership/labs0797.htm

Jeffrey Bathe is the Director of Instructional Technology and Alternative Delivery at Kankakee Community College and a Ed.D. student in Educational Organization and Leadership at UIUC. He can be reached at JBathe@kcc.edu.