 |
MCC Photo Archives |
| Technological advancements throughout the years have made typewriters (above) nearly obsolete in today's fast-pace society. |
 |
Rebecca Straughmatt Mesa Legend |
| Technology has come far since MCC has opened. The library has the latest equipment available to students which makes work much easier. |
Advancements in technology improve quality of learning
Michelle Goats
Mesa Legend
Today, digital technology is everywhere. A typical American day starts with the shriek of an alarm clock, the drip of a coffee maker and for many, the buzz of a home PC booting-up, ready to spill the news of the waking day.
For most students, it is hard to imagine a community college without state-of-the-art technology facilities providing access to millions of bytes of information, on demand, and at every student’s fingertips.
However there was a time, not so long ago, that students and faculty had to do everything the hard way.
Barbara Thelander, director of Continuing/Community Education and MCC graduate, began her career at MCC in 1981. She remembers having to prepare fall/spring schedule catalogs by hand, using a typewriter. “I remember spending two Christmas vacations typing the schedule for the following semester.”
Thelander said that if the schedule required special fonts, bolded letters or oversized letters, then she had to literally rub-on the letters. Artwork was clipped out and pasted onto the schedule pages before being sent out for print at the on-campus MCC print shop.
“We are thrilled to have the technology at our fingertips,” said Thelander. “Schedules are now put together and designed using Word and Quark software, and students now have access to everything we offer online.”
Registration procedures have changed drastically in the past 25 years. “When I first started school at MCC, tables were set up in the gym representing different departments. Students had to select a class and then wait in separate lines to get into that class. For example, if a student chose a sociology class, they would stand in the sociology line and wait to get a card from the instructor. You did that for every class, and when you had them all, you went to the registration desk,” said Thelander. Now, registering for classes is just a click away.
Remember the library that depended on card catalogs, dusty reference books and as many periodicals that an aisle could hold? Well, card catalogs have been replaced by online search systems, and today, students can log onto the MCC Library web site and find reference books, periodicals or magazines, either located at MCC, or any at any one of the other MCCD libraries. Students can access most major newspapers online to get accurate up-to-date information, worldwide, 24 hours a day. Class instruction, as well as the daily lives of the students, changed due to the advent of technology. Gone are the days of the hard way. Doing math step-by-step, by hand, with tons of scratch paper to work out the calculations, using a typewriter, thus using tons of correction tape, to type a term paper, and spending countless hours hanging out with the school librarian, researching Edgar Allan Poe for a mid-term paper.
Today, students whip out their TI-83 and bust out a few math problems, then run over to their iMac to Google the keyword “Edgar Allan Poe” and sift through the more-than-abundant “hits” on the topic. No more rough draft, hand written papers. Students use their laptops or PCs to type their articles—no correction tape necessary. It is hard to imagine getting an education and not having TI-83 calculators, cell phones, iPODs, pen drives, zip disks, online libraries, online registration, e-mail, and most importantly, laptop computers that are easily tucked away in students’ backpacks.
Student life is surrounded by technology. The MCC campus houses “Jazzland Café,” where students can sip a “cup of Joe” while surfing the Web. The Paul A. Elsner Library offers students a large-scale computer lab, two stories of book resources, as well as classrooms. The campus houses several computer labs, and all of the student records, transcripts and financial aid information is just a click away.
MAIN PAGE
|
