SUNY COIL Conference 2018

How can campuses recruit faculty members who want to try COIL, but don’t use technology in their
classrooms? This panel will explore how an institution used technology to bridge two gaps: one
between its campus and its COIL partner’s campus, and the second between its faculty members and
technology.
Despite credentials in their respective fields, faculty members are sometimes reluctant to incorporate
COIL in their classrooms because of their concerns about technology use. Years of successfully
educating students in a traditional, face-to-face setting often give rise to a “if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it”
approach in the classroom. However, this pushes up against administrative demands on faculty for
professional development, coupled with the rise of students whose digital literacy knowledge exceeds
their professors’ skills. Additionally, faculty members may want to expand their instructional toolkit,
but may be unsure how to go about it as well as being intimidated by the many options for integrating
new web technologies.
To assist faculty members with their initial apprehension regarding technology use and COIL, the
Office of Distance Education (DE) at Nassau Community College (NCC) established a workshop series
designed to “bring the tools to the teachers”. Workshops educating faculty on the use of online
technologies at NCC including VoiceThread, Kaltura and Zoom were conducted. The intent was to
bring awareness to the availability of these tools as well as feature faculty members who were
presently integrating their use or who had changed the design of their course from face-to-face classes
into the hybrid delivery mode .
This panel will feature faculty members who will discuss the transformation they underwent during
the training process. They will share their journey as they moved from “ apprehension to
comprehension. ”