During the summer, many campuses expand these workshops in a conference format, in which part of the day is devoted to hands-on sessions in computer labs, and the other part is scheduled with presentation and discussion sessions in which faculty learn about "big picture" issues as well hear about their colleagues' experiences with educational technology.

The summer offers many advantages over the regular academic year, including lighter workloads, which free up faculty time to concentrate on their teaching and to share their experiences with one another -- a major component of many of the UC summer training institutes. Typically organized by campus instructional development and teaching centers, the summer programs offer professional development training in a casual and collegial environment.

What emerges from these summer sessions is not only a faculty with greater confidence in their abilities to use technology in a way that will impact student learning, but also an appreciation of what is done - and can be done -- in the classroom.

A hands-on software seminar at the 2002 UC Davis Summer Institute on Technology in Teaching.

UC Davis Summer Institute on Technology in Teaching
The UC Davis Summer Institute on Technology in Teaching (SITT) has grown in popularity every year since it began in 1994. Approximately 70 faculty from a broad range of academic disciplines attend the week-long program, which covers topics such as "Giving Your Ideas Depth And Movement: 3-D Animation And Multimedia," "Detecting Plagiarism With Turnitin.Com," "Implications And Outcomes Of Teaching With Technology," "And Putting Courses Online -- How Does It Work?." The SITT is open to faculty, teaching assistants, and career staff whose work is directly related to instruction.

"The first year it was attended by early adopters who wanted to compare notes about how they use technology," says SITT coordinator Victoria Cross of the Teaching Resource Center. "In the last three years there was a real move away from the early adopters to the people who are not especially skilled with technology and don't find technology the motivator but realize it is important and want to hone up on it for their teaching careers."

Many of the sessions are led by returning faculty participants who give "reports from the trenches," showing others their successes and failures in using various educational technologies. Faculty also attend hands-on labs in which they learn a variety of skills, such as how to use PowerPoint, digitally manipulate photographs and images, manage grades electronically, and use online communication tools. They also learn software that is commonly used for building course websites, such as Macromedia Dreamweaver, as well as campus-specific resources, such as the UC Davis' portal, called MyUCDavis.

Although a main topic of the summer workshop sessions is technology, what motivates faculty to attend is a desire to improve teaching and learning, says Cross. "Davis is a very strong research campus and often teaching is not as highly valued as research," she says. "Finding a group of 70 people on campus who are willing to spend a week of their time in the summer to improve their teaching is inspiring to faculty. Technology in that case is sort of secondary, acting as a catalyst for the real questions: 'Will this make you a better teacher? Will it make your students better learners?'"

UC Davis conducts smaller educational technology workshops and seminars throughout the year; however, the summer institute provides something unique.

"The one thing we can't recreate during the school year is this amazing sense of community and support," says Cross. "By the end of the week, we often see new participants wanting to show others what they've created. People want to share their efforts because they know they will be accepted and that they will get useful feedback."

Berkeley, Irvine and UCSF

UC Berkeley Summer Faculty Technology Program
For five years, the UC Berkeley Summer Faculty Technology Program (FTP) has provided approximately 20 faculty with an opportunity to learn about how to use technology in their courses and about larger issues surrounding the use of technology in instruction.

FTP participants come from the campus' many schools and departments and are split into groups based on their previous experience with various technologies.

"We're trying to hit two basic goals," says FTP organizer Judy Stern of Educational Technology Services. "One, to give faculty hands-on skills and to build confidence, let them know this stuff is doable, show them what it takes and introduce them to available tools. Two, to orient them to the big picture - why we do this, what the advantage is to students and instructors. This is largely done through presentations given by faculty who attended the program in previous years and who have come back to share what they've done. As staff we don't try to dictate what good pedagogy is but rather let the faculty inspire each other."

Many faculty find that summer is the only time when they can focus on improving their technology skills and teaching, says Stern. They also appreciate the hands-on guidance that the summer workshop offers as well as the opportunity to get a start on their own websites.

Like UCD's summer program, a major benefit is the connection people make with one another during the coffee breaks and meals. "We intentionally schedule frequent and longer breaks so they have the time to talk with each other about what they're doing," says Stern. "We see a lot of faculty learning from each other. They get a chance to talk about teaching and realize that they are not alone in this."

UCSF faculty learned about video editing hardware and software at this summer's "Using Technology to Enhance Teaching & Learning" event.

UC Irvine: Faculty Instructional Technology Institute
UC Irvine's Faculty Instructional Technology Institute (FITI) generally addresses the needs of faculty who consider themselves to be neophytes with technology, although increasingly, faculty with a higher level of baseline skills are also participating to get one-on-one assistance with advanced skills, such as using streaming video and animation.

Faculty apply to participate in a four-day series of hands-on workshops, which is funded by the Division of Undergraduate Education (DUE) and Network & Academic Computing Services (NACS), and implemented by the Instructional Resources Center (IRC). According to IRC director De Gallow, participants learn how to use educational technology to further student learning, how to design a web page for learning, how to use PowerPoint and Dreamweaver, and how to incorporate graphics and scanned images and audio into their creations.

Alumni of the institute frequently return to demonstrate what they learned as participants in the Institute, as well as to demonstrate how their skills have progressed since. Participants analyze many of their colleague's web sites for ideas on design, resources, and pedagogical soundness.

At the end of the four days, participants are generally well on their way to completing a website or other project. They display and demonstrate their works-in-progress for the other participants and get feedback as well as encouragement, says Gallow.

UCSF CIT Summer Event: Using Technology to Enhance Teaching & Learning
The approach at UCSF (where there are no undergraduates) is to hold a one-day event during the summer in which faculty and staff from several of the campus' health science schools make presentations about their uses of technology. Approximately 100 people attended this summer's event, which was organized by the Library's Center for Instructional Technology (CIT). The event also included an informal show-and-tell session during lunch.

During the event, faculty shared their failures along with their successes with educational technology. Some talked about the common mistakes they made when they first started using a course website, such as overwhelming students with too much information, and not structuring discussion forums and online chats with a theme and time deadline. Others talked about their own learning curve and the advantages they have discovered of being technologically proficient.

"Four years ago I didn't know how to turn on a computer. I had no teaching training or education background so I was forced to teach the way I was taught," said Mark Dellinges, a professor in the School of Dentistry, who presented "New Tools to Access Knowledge: A Dental School Professor's Experience." "Our students are of the 'Net Generation' -- they are being raised with the Internet. New technologies provide tools to conveniently enhance creativity, expression and communication. We have to think about the way we are teaching and the way students are learning."