Faculty Spotlight
October - November 2002
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Planning for Technology:
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Janet Kelly, an associate professor in the Political Science department, arrived at UT in 1999, bringing with her research interests in Public Financial Management and Urban Policy. In addition, she brought along a decades-long interest in technology. She notes that she has always been interested in technology, having punched cards for COBOL in the 1970s. Her major was economics and, in that discipline, you try to discover relationships through statistical modeling. "In the early days, you wrote your own Job Control Language (JCL). Now you select 'regression' from a pull-down menu." The easy accessibility of once complicated tools makes it possible to integrate computers easily into a course like public finance.
Ways of looking at the computer
Janet first thought of the computer as a data cruncher, then as a word processor. Once the integrated office suites emerged on the scene, she began to explore their application to teaching. As soon as you stop seeing the computer as a single-purpose tool, then you begin to think of problems in your discipline to which you can apply these tools for a deeper understanding of content. The possibilities are limitless when you consider the way communications, presentation, statistical applications, and database software allow student users to move from an idea to data analysis, to a report, to a presentation of findings.1 of 5 -->