UAB IT is asking faculty to provide feedback on their use of certain technologies through a brief online survey .

“Last year we were focused on the development of standards for fixed technology in the classroom, and this survey builds upon that project,” said Sheila Sanders, vice president for information technology.

“Our office, in conjunction with Associate Provost Philip Way, wants to understand better which other technologies our faculty use and those they consider to be priorities for more global support.”

The survey will touch on the use of interactive response systems, such as clickers, in the classroom and increasingly popular social networking tools such as Facebook and MySpace.

Clickers are becoming an important tool in many classrooms to promote active learning, student engagement and assessment. The first part of this survey will identify where these are being used at UAB and will assess the most valued attributes in selecting a response system. The goal is to identify a standard that could potentially be used across campus and reduce the need for students to have multiple clickers for different classes.

Social collaborative tools such as MySpace, Second Life, YouTube, blogs and instant messaging also are receiving attention for their potential to increase student engagement. The second part of this survey seeks to determine the familiarity of UAB faculty with these tools and identify the ones faculty may consider priorities for global support.

The survey also can be accessed from the Faculty Resources tab on BlazerNet .