6 Ways Technology has Changed University Life

I stared in awe at the ancient castle and cathedral spires, towering over the city, as the train pulled into Durham station from London Kings Cross. I was excited to be leaving home for the first time and starting a Bachelor’s degree at the University of Durham. I disembarked, chatting with another student I had met on the train and we shared a taxi to our college…

More than twenty years later…

I logged on excitedly to the Monash University website to find the first units of my Master’s degree had been uploaded. I scanned through to see what we would be learning and checked who else was on the course…

The university experience has changed dramatically since I was first studying over 20 years ago. A lot of the changes are the result of advances in digital technology. To put some perspective on this, I started university before Windows 95, before Google and long before YouTube and Facebook. Here are just a few of the changes that I have observed:

1)      The students

These days, students don’t have to give up years of their ‘normal life’ to go away to university. Flexible learning options through VLEs (Virtual Learning Environments) such as Moodle mean that students can study where they want and when they want. This has opened up possibilities to more people, so the diversity of students is much wider. There are employed students, parent students, rural students, overseas students, disabled students; the list goes on. Many of these groups may never have been able to consider studying 20 years ago and many of them may never actually attend the physical campus as they complete their courses online.

2)      Researching for assignments

During my Bachelor’s degree, I recall traipsing down to the library in the rain or snow, only to find that the book I wanted was already on loan. It was possible to search for a book on the library computer system and reserve it for borrowing, but you might find you were on a list after 5 other people on your course. If you were lucky, the book was on a 4-hour loan, so you stood a chance of borrowing it in time; although that 4 hour time slot may only give you enough time to photocopy parts of it if you were due elsewhere.

Now, when I need to do research for an assignment, I’m no longer subject to library opening hours and book availability. In fact, most of the time I don’t need to go to the library at all and I can get my information from journals and research papers online. I can search through the university library database or search engines such as Google Scholar for information I need, and download it from the comfort of my own home, in the middle of the night if I so choose.

3)      Writing and submitting assignments

Hand-written assignments were not unusual, depending on your lecturer’s preference. Some insisted that they were word-processed. This meant booking time at the computer laboratory to type up your assignment, because hardly anyone had their own computers. Then you had to save it onto a floppy disk and pay to print it out in the library. For longer assignments or dissertations, you were also expected to get them bound; this meant a trip to the binders who would get it done for you to collect the next day. If students plagiarised one of last year’s student’s essays or copied a little too much out of a book, the professor probably wouldn’t notice – unless he or she had written the book of course.

Now at university, a computer is an essential piece of equipment. The feeling of writing on a computer, where you can go back to edit your errors is very liberating. I don’t need to print or bind any assignments as I just submit them online through the VLE. Plagiarists beware! Software such as ‘Turnitin’ indexes your assignment for similarity to web pages, journals, books and student papers and will highlight these for your lecturers.

4)      Lectures

Lectures at Durham University in the 1990s probably hadn’t changed much from when it was first established in 1832. The ‘sage on the stage’ chalking and talking, while students took notes or caught up on sleep. In 2016, it is still not so different, although they may be using a PowerPoint presentation instead of a whiteboard and throwing in the occasional YouTube clip. Students are still taking notes, although it may be on a computer, and they may be more likely to be getting distracted by their phone than sleeping. The main difference is that you don’t have to physically attend the lecture. If you prefer, you can go to the VLE at a time that suits you, to watch the video and download the PowerPoint slides. However, there are also a few more progressive lecturers who have updated the didactic lecture concept to webinars. These allow synchronous interaction online through your computer’s camera and microphone.

5)      Tutorials

A tutorial consisted of a group of about 5 students huddled in a professor’s office to discuss a pre-arranged topic or question with him or her. These were the best opportunity to exchange ideas, ask questions and deepen learning beyond reading.

Now these have been replaced with online forums which allow students to log into the VLE and start a thread with a question or observation, or reply to someone else’s thread and ideas are expanded, developed or clarified. These threads are monitored by lecturers who may or may not also comment. In my experience, these can be places of rich learning and communication or a place where you are met by tumbleweeds, depending on the enthusiasm of your fellow students.

6)      Student Satisfaction

In the 1990s I didn’t get the impression that universities cared that much what students thought of their courses. I was certainly never asked for my opinion. Now, I get asked to give feedback at the end of every unit. Digital technologies have meant that it is easier to collect and distribute data.

Today, when students are choosing a university, they are highly likely to base that choice on university league tables. Professors may still care more about their research than teaching, but they are certainly more aware of the need to keep their students happy.

 

I wouldn’t change my time at university in the 1990s for anything. The social experience of being in residence at university was one of the highlights. I made friends for life and have great memories.

Digital technologies are changing the student experience and have the potential to drastically reduce the cost of higher education. The learning, communication and collaboration tools available are yet to be used to their full advantage. The pedagogy of online teaching is continually developing. There is exciting potential for a lot of change still to come.

What changes have you observed at universities? What changes are still to come? Will the changes be positive? I’d love to hear your opinions.