CCI Fails to Satisfy Student Expectations

But to the surprise of some students, CCI officials are saying a semester after the program's launch that getting instructors to integrate computers into the classroom is not CCI's objective.

"I got the impression (that we would use laptops in class) when I went to C-TOPS and we were registering for classes," said Mike Browne, a freshman from Charlotte. "My counselor said that since we all had laptops we'd be taking them to class, getting homework assignments on e-mail and getting Web assignments in class. I haven't done any of that yet."

But Marian Moore, vice chancellor for information technology, said CCI officials are not pushing instructors to work laptops into their lesson plans.

"That's the faculty's prerogative," she said. "The CCI was never about taking your laptop to class every day. It was about providing the appropriate technology to all freshmen."

Because the IBM Thinkpads are required by the University, a $3 million fund was created to help students who could not afford computers without them. Moore said UNC provided grants for almost 1,000 computers for members of the freshman class this year alone.

Moore said CCI officials do not know exactly how many instructors are incorporating laptops into their courses. But because half of all freshmen take introductory chemistry, a class that uses laptops in its labs, she estimated that at least 50 percent of freshmen have used them in class.

"I believe the first semester we have made very good progress," Moore said. "The time to start assessing (the program's success) is not now."

Moore said the program could not be evaluated for another four years, when the initiative has been fully integrated and all students have laptops.

The initiative, which began this fall, is aimed at ensuring that all UNC students purchase laptops upon entering UNC.

But Moore also said CCI officials have no plans to track the number of courses that incorporate the new technology into class time. "If the College of Arts and Sciences would like to do that they may, but it's not our responsibility," she said.

Moore said that it is the faculty's responsibility to work the computers into their courses, but that it will be years before all instructors can feasibly use laptops in the classroom."It takes four years to laptop this campus," Moore said. "(Instructors) can't require laptops when people don't have the appropriate technology. These things take time."

Moore said CCI is not about bringing individual technology into the classroom, but rather meeting students' advanced needs for a broader educational experience outside the classroom. "The whole point of this program is to empower faculty to do creative work by using laptops, and that seems to be happening."

She said CCI is providing students opportunities to e-mail professors, do Internet research and use word-processing programs at their own convenience.

Although there are already places on campus for students to perform these tasks, Moore said campus facilities are inadequate. "We can't put enough computers in enough classrooms for all the students," she said.

Although Moore said the program's primary emphasis is outside the classroom, some students are disappointed that the program has not met their expectations inside the classroom as well.

Katherine Didow, a freshman international relations major from Chapel Hill, said some of her professors are less than enthusiastic about using the new technology in class. "Some of my professors have said they don't allow (laptops) in the classroom because they're a distraction," Didow said.

Jessica Jones, a freshman nursing major from Shelby, who has yet to attend a class that requires her to bring her laptop, has not found CCI improving UNC's level of technology.

"I guess they just played up everything being high-tech," she said. "A lot of the classrooms don't support the technology ... (The University) made it seem like (technology) would be everywhere and it's not."

The University Editor can be reached at udesk@unc.edu.