For college students, up-to-date technology matters most

Tiffany Herring can't conceive of a world without Google.

"Sure, I go to the library, but it's not to use the books," said the Northwest-Shoals Community College freshman. "I'm there to use the technology they have, like the laptops you can borrow."

Herring, like most of her college freshman contemporaries, was born in 1990, just about the same time the World Wide Web was hatched. It might not be a coincidence, then, that so many of these students depend on technology as they work toward a college degree, and, for many of them, there is also an expectation that the school they choose will help them meet that need.

"I've never done a research paper without the help of the Internet," Herring said. "I feel like I can be a better student with technology. It's easier for me to get the information without having to flip through lots of books."

As a result, many college libraries and technology centers are adapting to these high-tech needs.

At Northwest-Shoals, librarian Rachel Trapp has seen the shift toward technology as gradual, having its genesis in the mid-1990s with the advent of e-mail.

"These days, people use Google and a few words to get what they're looking for as opposed to doing more traditional card catalog research," she said.

To stay competitive, colleges have had to get creative. The laptop loan program has been popular, Trapp said, as has having a completely wireless campus that allows students to use their own laptops anywhere they need, including in the classroom.

Online courses, known as distance education, also have increased in popularity at Northwest-Shoals and at the University of North Alabama in Florence. In fact, officials at both schools say those classes are often the first to fill up during registration.

With the technology, however, comes a degree of academic responsibility. Students have learned, for instance, how to cheat using text messaging capabilities on their cell phones, and laptops can be a way to surf the Web rather than take notes in class.

Ron Smith, chairman of the department of English at UNA, has been a professor for 28 years and, in that time, he's seen students become more and more dependent on technology as well as become prey to its pitfalls.

"Plagiarism and cheating are big problems," he said. "We submit papers to turnitin.com if we suspect there may be a problem, and our suspicions have been right a time or two."

The university has an academic honor code, but the punishment for being caught for cheating or plagiarizing is nebulous. Already, Smith said the English Department has banned student use of Wikipedia because of the unreliable nature of the information on the site.

In addition to seeking information, students also use technology to stay in touch with their professors, often e-mailing or texting at odd hours of the day.

Smith said there are positives and negatives associated with the need among students to communicate.

"I can always send them an e-mail if I've forgotten a portion of their assignment while we're in class," he said. "But, they may also want us to use personal e-mail accounts instead of their UNA account. Still, I will often suggest they come by and talk."

The demands on a professor's time and availability caused UNA to adopt a new policy regarding professors' office hours this fall, lowering the time spent to seven hours per week, down from 10 hours.

Like Northwest-Shoals, UNA is also wireless. And the university has acquired technology for its new Lion Alert system that was implemented this fall. The system can be used to warn students of disasters and dangers on campus.

Randy Horn, director of communication and telecommunication services at UNA, said schools have to make a decision about when to invest in new technologies, especially in light of the rapid change that has become the hallmark of the high-tech industry.

"We have to decide if what we want is a luxury or a necessity," he said. "Wifi is a case of something that's just good to have. We didn't necessarily need it, but it makes life easier. Lion Alert is an example of something we had to have. The cost of keeping the campus safe is an issue a parent would say is priceless."

Students at both Northwest-Shoals and UNA pay a technology fee as part of their tuition costs. At some colleges around the country, the investment in technology is much greater.

Abilene Christian University in Abilene, Texas, outfitted its incoming freshman class with iPhones. School officials say the reason is to help students stay informed of homework alerts, allow them to answer in-class surveys and quizzes as well as to check their meal and account balances.

"We are not merely providing cutting-edge technology tools to our incoming students," said Kevin Roberts, chief information officer at ACU. "We are also providing the Web applications that ensure these tools will become critical to the students' learning experience."

Recent data on college freshmen reveal that they often arrive on campus with technology better than what their university offers. What's more, students will spend 27.5 percent more on electronic purchases this year than in years past.

Andrew McGinnis, a freshman at UNA, had his laptop and cell phone in tow this fall as he moved into Rivers Hall. In fact, everyone in his peer group was similarly outfitted. Like Herring, he's never had to trudge through a research paper without the Internet, nor has he been faced with the daunting task of using a typewriter.

Despite the convenience technology has brought to his life, McGinnis admits that technology brings with it a distinct set of issues.

"Technology is there to help, but I can see how it can make us lazy," he said. "There's no doubt we take it for granted."

Michelle Rupe Eubanks can be reached at 740-5745 or michelle.eubanks@TimesDaily.com.