In a technology demand-driven world, it's no surprise that the University is planning to incorporate more technology into the classroom.
Starting in spring 2003, "technology-focused courses for the new economy" will be integrated into the classroom.
As part of Proposition 301 that passed last year, universities were asked to prepare their students for jobs with a heavy reliance on technology, according to ASU Vice President and Provost Milton Glick.
"There is a great interest in how to produce a workforce that is ready to take on the challenge of a new century," Glick said.
Many of these technologically driven concepts will start to affect colleges such as Liberal Arts and Sciences.
More than a dozen courses in the English department will incorporate more technology in its classes.
"We are creating technical courses related to different disciplines," Glick said. "Just like writing across the curriculum, it will be technology across the curriculum."
Literature students who are used to reading a stack of novels, now have the opportunity to learn how to build Web sites, and how to build personal databases, said Elizabeth Horan, chair of the English Department.
Many of these courses will now be offered as four, rather than three credit courses with the extra credit hour spent in lab, learning about much of the new technological software.
Other English courses will start to utilize myASU to communicate with their classmates and teachers outside of class.
"The students will learn how to responsibly draw materials off the net," Horan said.
Geography, computer information systems and biology will also play a role in the technology-focused concept, such as emphasizing the use of computers in the classroom.
Aside from immersing students in technology, more courses will also start be offered online.
Currently, accounting, history, theater and even math are available online, and now, first-year composition and writing for the professions, science fiction and American drama courses will be offered completely online, though students have the option to still take the courses on campus.
"There is a heavy demand for [these courses]," Horan said. "They are enrolled to the max. We've also had strong interest from people throughout the state that want to take the courses [online]."
Horan added that more technology was a great idea, and that she has already started incorporating it in her courses by using her personal Web site and myASU to provide her students with lectures, quizzes and discussions.
"I think it's essential that people learn how to read and write using the array of tools possible to us," she said.
Reach the reporter at jennifer.summers@asu.edu.
