Faculty Spotlight
November - December 2003: Dr. Anita Hollander
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Dr. Hollander has received several teaching
and academic awards
during her career; she was one of the first recipients of the Teaching
Incentive Award from the State of Florida Legislature while at
Florida State University, and received national distinction as
a Carnegie Scholar from the
Carnegie
Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning.
In addition to presenting her work at numerous academic and professional
conferences, Dr. Hollander has published numerous journal articles
and research reports and is coauthor of both a textbook and professional
book.
The Importance of Thinking About Technology Tools for Business
From the outset, Dr. Hollander's specialization in Information management predisposed
her to a strong emphasis on technologies. Computers and spreadsheets were the
tools of the trade, and so became both content and context of her teaching. "Spreadsheets
can be a wonderful vehicle for making sure that students understand and can
model a concept. When they can model ideas, represent them in formulas, you
know they understood the concept, and are better able to generalize to different
contexts." She finds that the generation that "grew up digital" is
acquainted with the technologies, but may not fully understand them. "That's
where we pick up with information management classes. We stress the human processor
directing and controlling the computer processor. That's a different role --
actually driving the technology, rather than just using the technology." The
biggest issue, though, is "developing the business logic necessary to
use a technology tool to solve a business problem. It's more about developing
critical thinking skills, about developing business logic. For example, to
use a set of data, you have to know how to access what you need, think about
whether you've answered the question that was asked, and put it in a package
that's suitable to present to a boss. That's when students really understand
that the computer does what you tell it to do, and that the output is only
going to be as good as the cognition or the reasoning of the person who directed
the computer. It's really about logical thinking and taking the mystique out
of this black box."
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