For more information, contact Cindy Young, (937) 775-3232.
June 15, 1999
WSU FACULTY MEMBER RECEIVES AWARD FOR
INNOVATION IN INSTRUCTIONAL TECHNOLOGY
Bonnie Mathies, Ph.D., associate professor of education and assistant dean for technology and communications in the College of Education and Human Services at Wright State University, recently received a 1999 award for Innovative Excellence in Teaching, Learning and Technology. The award was presented in Jacksonville, Fla., by the Center for Advancement of Teaching and Learning."Dr. Mathies has provided campus-wide leadership on instructional technology for students, faculty and other staff members at Wright State for the past 20 years," said Perry Moore, Ph.D., Wright State University provost. "She has been an effective advocate for the use of technology to enhance the quality of teaching."
Throughout her career, Mathies has developed student learning laboratories and assisted faculty with their technology development. Her teaching aids include compressed video and Web-based technologies. She has published and presented papers on distance learning, computer-based instruction and instructional development. In 1991, Mathies co-authored "Teaching with Computers: Yes You Can."
Besides teaching her own students, Mathies also helps her faculty colleagues "become better consumers and producers of instructional technology." Computer and Web-based instruction helps students learn, but Mathies says it's important to consider students' different learning styles. For example, some students need visual stimulus while others are auditory learners.
Mathies believes the World Wide Web can be used to support traditional classroom delivery methods. In the next few years, she "would like to see every course, at least within our college, have some kind of (Web-based) instructional support. If a student wants to review a syllabus, look at sample materials, or read the bibliography, they can do that by going in through their computer and looking at the class."
New technology may also change the traditional faculty office hours. Mathies jokes that technology now allows faculty to work 24 hours a day, seven days a week. She has set up times when she is online and available by e-mail or chat room.
"They know that I will either be reading my mail or be available during these times," Mathies says. Her students are receptive to these technologies, primarily because they are learning how to teach using the latest computer and video technology.
"We teach people to be technology leaders and directors," Mathies says. "One of the big issues in education today is the sheer number of people working out in the schools who are untrained, ill-equipped and not ready for technology." Ohio and other states are putting more instructional technology into their schools, and Mathies is trying to answer the plea she consistently hears from superintendents and principals: "Don't give us people we are going to have to retrain."
 What's New |
News Releases |
News & Calendars |
