In higher education today, incorporating and integrating technology into daily classroom activities is becoming the standard practice. Every year, entering students are coming to college with a greater and greater understanding of and expectation for technology. They have used e-mail, sometimes for years before matriculating. They surf the web, research on-line, and often use the internet as their primary form of communication and expression.
Faculty, likewise, have in many cases seen the technology available and grabbed onto it as a now irreplaceable teaching tool. If a picture is worth a a thousand words, then a Power Point with twelve pictures as well as other content becomes of inestimable value. No longer do faculty need to bring in an old tape recorder to play the audio clip that explains a certain point better than anything else. Now someone who uses a TILE can walk in, log on, and bring up all their files through the same interface they are used to in their offices. Multi-media is a common term these days, but it is still a highly beneficial concept to add to an existing class. Multi-media can be as simple as showing a video, showing clips from a DVD, or a Power Point presentation that includes a Flash movie put together for the topic at hand. The computer puts the entire internet at the instructor’s finger tips. A TEC can make all this, and more, a reality for any teaching situation.