Rome Wasn't Digitized in a Day - Council on Library and Information ...

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Blackwell and Mart<strong>in</strong> concluded that the <strong>in</strong>tegration of <strong>in</strong>formation technology and new models of
faculty-student collaboration <strong>in</strong>to conventional classical teach<strong>in</strong>g would be necessary not just to
re<strong>in</strong>vigorate the discipl<strong>in</strong>e but also to keep it relevant:
Because technology has lowered the economic barriers to academic publish<strong>in</strong>g—a reality that
too few publish<strong>in</strong>g Classicists have fully understood—it is easy to guide student-writers <strong>in</strong>to
becom<strong>in</strong>g student-authors. We who teach Classics can add to our pedagogy the technological
tools of the <strong>in</strong>formation economy, thus arm<strong>in</strong>g ourselves aga<strong>in</strong>st charges of impracticality and
at the same time possibly attract<strong>in</strong>g students whose <strong>in</strong>terests lie outside the Classics. And as
digital libraries beg<strong>in</strong> to <strong>in</strong>ter-operate, they breathe new life <strong>in</strong>to largely disregarded scholarly
genres and <strong>in</strong>vent entirely new ones—geographic <strong>in</strong>formation systems, computational
l<strong>in</strong>guistics, and so forth (Blackwell and Mart<strong>in</strong> 2009).
Nonetheless, it seems that such calls are be<strong>in</strong>g only partially heard, even <strong>in</strong> terms of much less
“radical” <strong>in</strong>novation. Recent research by Dimitrios Vlachopoulos has <strong>in</strong>vestigated the perceptions of
academic staff that teach classical languages (Greek and Lat<strong>in</strong>) regard<strong>in</strong>g the use of “onl<strong>in</strong>e activities”
<strong>in</strong> their teach<strong>in</strong>g (Vlachopoulos 2009). In the first phase of this research, 33 <strong>in</strong>structors <strong>in</strong> Greece,
Spa<strong>in</strong>, and the United States were asked to complete a three-part survey. The first part asked them
about their “digital profile” and their general level of <strong>in</strong>formation and ICT understand<strong>in</strong>g. The second
part asked them to evaluate the potential of ICT <strong>in</strong> classics and whether or not they or their students
had the knowledge to actively utilize such technology, and the third part asked <strong>in</strong>structors to outl<strong>in</strong>e
the most significant challenges <strong>in</strong> us<strong>in</strong>g ICT for onl<strong>in</strong>e course delivery. In the second phase of this
research, <strong>in</strong>terviews were conducted with about half of the participants. Vlachopoulos emphasized that
most of the participants were worried about the future of their departments and the amount of fund<strong>in</strong>g
they received from their universities. “It was a common belief that new strategies need to be designed,”
Vlachopoulos reported, “<strong>in</strong> order to attract more students every year and to offer them more job
opportunities.”
The analysis of the survey and <strong>in</strong>terview results led Vlachopoulos to classify the <strong>in</strong>structors <strong>in</strong>to three
groups: conservatives, who were completely closed to the use of <strong>in</strong>novative ICT <strong>in</strong> the classroom;
ma<strong>in</strong>stream, who even if they stated they were <strong>in</strong> favor of major changes <strong>in</strong> teach<strong>in</strong>g, were “risk
averters” and faced significant problems <strong>in</strong> deploy<strong>in</strong>g ICT; and early adopters, who were open to the
<strong>in</strong>novative use of ICT <strong>in</strong> their classrooms. Despite the fears stated above about need<strong>in</strong>g new methods
to attract students, 46 percent of the group fell <strong>in</strong>to the ma<strong>in</strong>stream, with 30 percent classified as
conservatives and only 24 percent identified as early adopters. 631 Vlachopoulos stated that while early
adopters wanted to create new roles <strong>in</strong> the classroom, explored new teach<strong>in</strong>g methods with technology,
and reported a high level of will<strong>in</strong>gness to pursue experimentation, ma<strong>in</strong>stream faculty wanted “proven
applications of recognized value” before they deployed them <strong>in</strong> their classroom and also needed
significant technical support for almost all ICT application. Expla<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g this group classification further,
Vlachopoulos detailed that:
Only 15% of the <strong>in</strong>structors can be identified as early adopters concern<strong>in</strong>g their skills <strong>in</strong> us<strong>in</strong>g
ICT for learn<strong>in</strong>g activities. These <strong>in</strong>dividuals have studied computer science for personal use
and use ICT every day <strong>in</strong> their personal life and almost every class they give. The majority of
the <strong>in</strong>structors (55%) belong to the ma<strong>in</strong>stream category s<strong>in</strong>ce they haven’t studied computer
631 This appears to confirm the earlier f<strong>in</strong>d<strong>in</strong>gs of the CSHE study (Harley et al. 2006b) that classicists use digital resources <strong>in</strong> the classroom less
frequently than do scholars other discipl<strong>in</strong>es.