Paula’s E-Musings

Despite the fact that more than 90 percent of our students bring their own computers to campus, labs throughout campus are busier than ever.  Their use has not only increased but so have their numbers.  At SUNY Cortland the number of teaching labs has grown 42 percent in the past five years alone, from 28 (15 Windows and 13 Macintosh) to 37 (20 Windows and 17 Macintosh). In addition the number of smaller, special use labs has grown by 50 percent, from 22 to 33.  

A recent Educause Review article addresses the myth that because so many students bring their own computers to campus student labs are no longer needed. In fact at our campus the evolving curriculum incorporates more discipline-specific technologies and requires students to use sophisticated — and expensive — software applications. Since 2000 we have built eight new high-end media labs to support specific technology-intensive majors in Sports Management, New Communications Media, New Media, GIS and Professional Writing.  We have allocated separate funds to maintain these labs, which must be updated more frequently to reflect the ever-changing technologies.

Even though most of our students own computers, they are social beings and enjoy congregating in our late night labs — often IMing each other across the room. That’s not much different from my own college days when we dragged our heavy books from our dorm rooms to the library to engage in social interactions while we studied (or didn’t).

Today’s students are more likely to engage in group projects where they produce and present multimedia which they’ve developed collaboratively. What better place to assemble than in one of the labs that we’ve designed for flexibility and creativity? As the use of technology has become more sophisticated so have our labs. The need for labs is not likely to diminish; it will likely grow and continue to evolve.