Transitioning Vandal technology – UI to provide opportunities to improve technology, teaching

It’s time for the University of Idaho to get an upgrade.

Vice President for Infrastructure Dan Ewart announced that the university is in the process of replacing its video conferencing software with a new product called Zoom during Tuesday’s Faculty Senate meeting.

Vice Provost for Academic Affairs Jeanne Stevenson also presented plans to reorganize and expand part of the Division of Distance and Extended Education into the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning to provide teaching resources for instructors.

“We were hired because we were experts in a field,” said Faculty Senate Chair Liz Brandt. “We’re not required to take teaching classes like high school teachers are.”

The move comes after Faculty Senate spent much of last year debating the merits of improving technology at UI.

Brandt said the center could help with technology training. This would include teaching instructors to use Blackboard to add to their classes and, as ASUI requested, to post grades in a useful and timely way.

Brandt said the center could provide presentations and lectures on instruction techniques regardless of technology use. Stevenson said the center could also provide opportunities for instructors to observe each other and for instructors to have someone sit in and review them. Brandt said these offerings would be voluntary.

“Having the resources available raises the bar for everybody on being good teachers,” Brandt said.

Stevenson said the division already has two employees working to help instructors with Blackboard. The first new employee the university will look for is a director for the center, she said.

Brandt said the decision to switch to Zoom video conferencing software happened by request of faculty who found the previous system “clunky.”

“I have already been using Zoom and it really works wonderfully,” said Sen. Jodie Nicotra of the College of Letters, Arts and Social Sciences.

Ewart said rooms 202 and 204 in the Engineering Physics Building will be made ready to use the new program. He said they will also upgrade portable units in the Administration Building and the Idaho Commons. He said he hopes these upgrades will be done by January.

Ewart said Information Technology Services is setting up a new half-time position that he said will make it “as easy as a phone call” for instructors to get set up with the new program. Ewart said his announcement made his report to Faculty Senate much more positive than last year’s.

Nishant Mohan

can be reached at

[email protected] or

on Twitter @NishantRMohan

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