Sue K. Otto Joining the Multimedia Revolution: Infrastructure, Support, and Other Challenges Abstract. Universities are making enormous investments in complex infrastructures, including technology/ computer laboratories, technology-equipped presentation classrooms, computer classrooms, local-area networks and campus-wide fiber-optic networks. Protecting these investments requires skillful management and maintenance ofresources as weil as strategic planning. Although new technological tools and resources promise to revolutionize what and how we teach foreign Ianguages and cultures, both in traditional residential settings and in new virtual environments, difficult issues face us as we strive to exploit technology: proper recognition for work in technology; on-going training opportunities; programming and design assistance; and hardware and software for development and delivery. 1. Introduction What revolutionary changes in language education will emerge from today's stunning array of technological tools powerful PCs, interactive multimedia software, networked highspeed comrnunications, the World Wide Web? The technology inspires us to imagine wonderful scenarios: engaging, intelligent multimedia courseware that responds to individual students' interests and learning styles; holistic learning environments that provide authentic language experiences; virtual communities of motivated language learners working and learning together. As we dream of the utopian transformation of education through technology, dozens of questions emerge from administrators and faculty. At the institutional level, the questions relate to broad issues of infrastructure: • What hardware does our institution need? • What kind of network/ communications infrastructure do we need? • How often do we have to upgrade our old equipment for new systems? • How much will this cost us? • How will we pay for it? • How will higher education change, given the new technologies that promise to enable virtual classrooms for better distance learning? Faculty members will raise additional questions about professional and methodological concerns: • Do faculty really have to use new technology in their teaching and research (and what happens if they don't want to)? • Who will help faculty learn how to use hardware and software? • What technologies might be appropriate for a specific course subject? • Should we create our own custom-programmed instructional technology materials? FILlllL 28 (1999) Joining the Multimedia Revolution: Infrastructure, Support, and Other Challenges 115 • Who will provide support after faculty make decisions to integrate technology into their curricula? • Will faculty be risking their professional careers if they dedicate time and effort to technology-based development? Together, educators and their institutional administrators must face these and many other daunting questions about integrating technology into the instructional environment. They must meet the challenges of coping with the constant change in hardware and the corresponding demand to upgrade software so that it continues function in new environments all while trying to implement curricular change and reach instructional goals. Unfortunately, as one might suspect in reading the list above, there are at present many more hard questions than there are easy answers. One may look at any institution that boasts a successful implementation of technology and assume that, given enough cash, it would be simple just to acquire (more or less instantly) what that institution has. The truth of the matter is that building and maintaining a technology infrastructure and creating a vital program of technologfbased instruction including hardware and software requires large investments of planning and money for developing the best solutions for local settings and needs. This is not to say that one cannot look at an institution with a model program and adopt many of the features of it. Some basic principles apply to all successful implementations. Here we will exarnine broad issues of infrastructure, support, collaboration, incentives and comrnitments for maintaining a healthy program of technology-based language teaching and learning. 2. Institutional Infrastructure Computerhardware seemingly changes at a dizzying pace, leaving us reluctant to take the plunge at any given moment and commit to hardware that we must live with for a number of years. However, we know that development of good software that will meet our needs lags well behind hardware changes. Therefore, installing and upgrading hardware configurations, particularly discipline-specific support facilities, must be driven by software that matches instructional needs and pedagogical goals. Administrators must not fall victim to the mistaken notion that, if the equipment is put in place, effective instructional implementations will follow. (The exception here is campus-wide communications or networking infrastructure. Administration must take the lead in planning for and implementing these basic, essential services.) To be sute, if an institution invests in state-of-the-art computer facilities for students, seats will fill up with users doing email, word processing, and Websurfing; but the overall impact of the presence of the technology itself on instruction will be negligible. Furthermore, we should not believe that bringing in new technologies results in the demise of older tried-and-true technologies; rather, they will coexist not only for reasons of software availability, but because they genuinely work better for the instructional need or for the instructor's approach to teaching. Most institutions have a wide array of facilities that provide the university community with access to technology, ranging from discipline-specific units (language media centers providing dedicated support to language students and faculty) to more generic campus IFILwL 28 (1999) 116 Sue K. Otto facilities, including networked computer labs for students, faculty-development studios, technology-equipped presentation classrooms, and computer-classrooms (with a computer for each student). A good technology infrastructure must comprise a variety of venues and configurations to meet different needs of students and faculty in the complex process of language instruction. Because the University of lowa's technology infrastructure is generally representative of the technological investments at many U.S. colleges and universities, the discussion that follows uses Iowa's facilities as a concrete model for reviewing the basic elements of infrastructure. ► Language Media Center: In the 60s, 70s and early 80s, the traditional audio language laboratory installation, comprised of a teacher console and student carrels with audio tape machines (originally for reel-to-reel formal, later replaced by cassette) and headphones, was the centerpiece of language learning technology. Slide and film projectors, record players and overhead projectors that could be checked out for use in regular classrooms usually complemented the audio language laboratory. During the 80s and 90s, this technology base was expanded to include the video cassette player, which has had very broad acceptance in language teaching, and computers (including multimedia workstations), which have not been as widely accepted into the repertoire of teaching tools by many in the profession. In order to accommodate a full range of available program materials and faculty preferences for using media in the curriculum, Iowa's Language Media Center maintains sixteen standard audio language laboratory stations for individual use of audio programming (as well as a traditional thirty-position audio language laboratory classroom), 20 video viewing carrels equipped with headsets and monitor/ VCR units, a computer area with thirty-six networked Macintosh and IBM-compatible computers (all with CD-ROM drives, sound capabilities, and headsets), ten networked multimedia computer carrels (with headsets, interactive videodisc, and video overlay capabilities). To respond to the need for facilities for students working on collaborative activities with video and computer technologies, the Media Center also has six small rooms designed and equipped for small-group work by several students at the same time. Hardware means nothing to instruction without media materials and software. Most language media centers have collected extensive libraries of materials requested by faculty for use in their courses. Like other typical language centers in the United States, the Language Media Center has a significant collection of media-based materials (approximately 4,000 titles of audio cassette, videotape, videodisc, CD-ROM and computer software programs). These holdings are managed by a computerized system that handles cataloguing, circulation and usage reporting. The software collection includes specialized foreignlanguage word-processors and writing tools (with support for foreign characters and special scripts, such as Japanese, Chinese and Cyrillic), computer-assisted language learning (CALL) software for practice in pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, character and sign (American Sign Language) recognition, reading and listening comprehension and building cultural insights; searchable databases on videodisc and CD-ROM providing access to cultural information (texts, audio, video and still images), game-like simulations, and computerized adaptive tests. lFLlilllL 28 (1999) Joining the Multimedia Revolution: lnfrastructure, Support, and Other Challenges 117 ► Technology centers for students: Students study at many different times during and after their travels around campus to attend dass. Frequently their studies involve using computer technology. To maximize convenience of access, an institution needs to establish technology centers in a variety of campus locations: dorms, dassroom buildings, libraries, and other campus locations where students spend time (e.g., the student union). This is the case on the Iowa campus for computer-based resources. The campus has more than 1,100 networked computer workstations around campus for walk-in student use. All of them access a standard suite of licensed software (word processors, spreadsheets, presentation software, email, library access, WWW browsers and Webpage creation, and graphic programs). The networked foreign language programs that are managed by the Language Media Center and that do not require a specific CD or other very specialized resource can be accessed from these other campus locations. As the trend toward constructivist, student-centered models of learning gains momentum, the need for good student access to technology will increase even more. ► Presentation classrooms: Current best practice dictates that the use of technology be thoughtfully and completely integrated into the curriculum. No longer is the technology solely for the use of students working alone outside of dass time. Effective use of technology begins in the dassroom, continues outside of dass time with students working alone or in groups, and completes the cyde in the dassroom with culminating activities and assessment. To encourage the use of a wide variety of media for language instruction, the Language Media Center supports thirteen instructional technology dassrooms. Each room has a teacher presentation station with an audio cassette deck, a multistandard VCR, a videodisc/ CD player, Mac and IBM computer equipment with CD-ROM capability, a data projector, an amplifier and an A/ V switcher. At the push of a button, teachers can switch conveniently between videotape, videodisc, CD, audio cassette and computer resources for their dassroom activities. In addition to the equipment at the teacher station, the technology dassrooms have two ! arge TVs on the front wall, ceiling-mounted speakers, and dimmable lighting. Teachers do not have to push equipment on carts through crowded hallways and waste valuable dass time setting up equipment at the beginning of dass and packing it up at the end of dass. Any technology that students have access to in the Media Center is also available to instructors and students in dass, thus enabling easy integration of technologybased activities and presentations into the curriculum. ► Computer classrooms: Classrooms that have a computer for the presenter and one for each student in the dass also have their place. Such facilities are expensive to equip and maintain, but they offer a9vantages for training faculty and students to use software (indispensable for promoting efficient and effective use of software) as well as for activities such as on-line synchronous (live) discussion, group tasks with the Web and in-dass writing tasks. Computer dassrooms are perhaps the scarcest of resources on campus, because they are so expensive to install and maintain; and the equipment configuration (commonly computers on tables fixed in rows) seriously inhibits their use for normal dassroom interactions. In exploring ways to break through the limitations created by fixed rows of individual computer workstations, we see experiments with flexible solutions that do not restrict lFlLIIL 28 (1999) 118 Sue K. Otto the room's use for typical classroom interactions, e.g., computer "islands" around the periphery of the classroom (designed to enable group computer work and multi-point presentation) and wireless network systems with laptop computers. ► Networking: We are in an age when the connectivity of a computer to the world outside the desktop is as important as the power of the machine itself that is, having a lot of memory, a large hard drive and a fast processor speed. The emergence of the Internet enabled by ever-expanding networks constitutes the most dramatic change in computing in the past decade. · World-wide networking promises to catalyze interesting changes in technology-assisted language learning, as we will explore in more detail later in this article. What implications do these changes have for the institutional infrastructure? The reincarnation of all familiar forms of communication text, video, audio, still photos and graphics in digital form is the hallmark of the Information Age. Tracing audio through its analog formats (wax cylinders, records, open-reel tape, and cassettes) to current digital formats (CD-ROMs and digital files stored magnetically on computer disks or hard drives), we note that the other forms and formats have also evolved in similar fashion from analog to digital. The presentational capabilities of current multimedia computers, which all have CD-ROM or DVD drives to deliver digitized materials, reflect this digital convergence of the media. Particularly in the educational environment, access to digital resources will probably not be linked to a piece of plastic inserted into a computer drive, but rather to the network connection in the back of the computer. At Iowa we are experimenting with a digital video server that can stream high-quality video to workstations through the network. Although we will continue for the near term to rely on our multimedia-computer workstations, (which play videodisc images on the computer screen using videodisc players and video overlay boards), these complex workstations are most decidedly on the endangered species list. With the advent of streaming video, we also hope to free our students to be able to work outside the Language Media Center on interactive multimedia lessons, breaking our present reliance on expensive specialized workstations. The delivery of digital resources for instruction and research demands high-bandwidth (high-speed, high-capacity) campuswide networking. The current technology that enables this is fiber-optic cabling. Universities have worked intensively in recent years toward completion of fiber-optic networks which cover all campus locations. The urgency to install a very high speed fiber-optic network infrastructure for campus-wide delivery of digital media is intensified by external pressures related to the astounding growth and development of the Internet. The structure of the Internet is undergoing major transformations to adapt to the demands of users. The encroachment of commercialism on the Internet and the exponential growth of home use of Internetservices have impaired the current net's functionality for many research and instructional uses. In response, initiatives to establish new high-speed communications networks (Van Houweling 1998: 17-20) have been launched: NGI (the government's Next Generation Internet); vBNS (National Science Foundation's very-high-speed Backbone Network Service), and Intemet2. Through a collaboration of universities working with corporate and government partners, Intemet2 was devised to provide high speed communilE'lLw.. 28 (1999) Joining the Multimedia Revolution: lnfrastructure, Support, and Other Challenges 119 cations among academic institutions across the U.S. With the system in place, sophisticated applications that demand very high speed computer-to-computer communication and realtime computer/ human interactions (including interactive instruction, real-time collaboration and shared virtual realities) will be possible. Students and faculty at different institutions will be able to access programs and resources at remote locations as if they were on a local network. 3. Managing the Infrastructure In general it is safe to say that all colleges and universities find themselves today in a financial vise caught between growing demand for expensive human and technological resources and the equally strong demand to contain costs of education for students. Lacking the authority to print money in the basements of their buildings, administrators are pressed to imagine new ways to finance technology services for both administrative and academic programs. Graves (1999: 96-101) suggests six basic principles for optimizing investments in information technology on campus. He advises administrators (1) to balance the broad institutional concerns against those of instructional departments, because their priorities may well be in conflict with each other; (2) to gather broad input from all the "stakeholders" (academic departments, key faculty and staff, and administration) in decisions about critical technology applications, but to give final decision-making power to a central information technology officer; (3) to conduct institution-wide strategic planning and budgeting, lead by a central information technology officer who consults broadly; (4) to establish recurring funding for replacing/ upgrading the technology; (5) to aim for convenient, affordable access to software and hardware resources for faculty, staff and students; and (6) to develop an institutional architecture of standards for specific hardware and software and its support, to ensure a high level of guaranteed service. ► Institutional vs. departmental priorities: Should the development of the technological infrastructure at an institution be a top-down process or a bottom-up one? The answer is "both" and most institutions struggle to balance the often-conflicting interests of the institution as a whole with those of departments and individual faculty. While institutional or administrative priorities tend to focus on high-performance core services, preferring standardized configurations of hardware and software for affordability, ease of use and support, departmental priorities must also be allowed to help define the technological environment. What happens when language faculty members need specialized multimedia hardware and software that is not supported by centralized information technology services? Should they be discouraged from developing or acquiring it because it doesn't conform to the standard campus-wide configurations? Should faculty expect support (either initial or on-going) from central information technology services for every bizarre, complex piece of technology they might acquire through external grants? The answers to questions like these lie in flexibility of policies, two-way exchanges (with thoughtful weighing of the pros and cons) in planning and decision-making, and collaborative approaches to resolving issues in a manner that makes the most sense for everyone. Compromises will happen. FLU! L 28 (1999) 120 Sue K. Otto ► Maintaining the infrastructure: From a curricular point of view, reliability is critical. Until the new computer and network technologies function as reliably as the overhead projector or VCR, few will tempted to create a technology-based curriculum. Reliability of technology resources rests on a schedule of regular preventive maintenance and timely troubleshooting help. These services, in turn, depend on having a sufficient number of qualified personnel who are trained in all technical aspects of the systems in use on campus workstations, peripherals, and localand wide-area networks. A well-qualified team of technical support personnel is critical to the success of the technology. Among the most important lessons that institutions can learn about technology is that the investment of capital in hardware and software must be matched by a major investment in people to support it. The rapid growth of technology and increasing complexity of networks and equipment installations make it exceedingly hard to find competent technical staff; and keeping them is an even bigger challenge for educational institutions, which find it difficult, if not impossible, to match financially the level of private-sector salaries for technical personnel. The burden of maintaining and supporting instructional technology should be distributed among institutional units: language media center, libraries, AV equipment services, information technology services, video center, telecommunications, space and facilities planning. Departmental instructional goals, not to mention institutional financial ones, are best served by specialized service units collaborating with more centralized organizations. ► Upgrades on a regular cycle: Too many instructional technology installations have been funded by one-time grants or gifts from individual donors or corporations. The strategy of acquiring resources now without a plan to maintain and upgrade them later can be fatal to long-term integration of technology for education. Graves ( 1999: 99) states that computer hardware has a life-expectancy of three years and software, twelve to eighteen months. In most educational settings, it is fair to say that a fouror five-year cycle is a more realistic timetable for upgrading equipment and instrµctional software. For some types of noncomputer equipment, a longer cycle may be appropriate. Waiting too long to upgrade equipment and software can translate into loss of important new capabilities and features. But in upgrading to newer hardware and software, we are invariably forced to make wrenching decisions about whether to preserve favorite materials and programs that have worked well in the past. Should we spend money and effort on these programs to upgrade them for the new environment; or is it time to simply abandon them and find alternative programming? In either case, the course of action must be dictated by the demands of the curriculum and program goals. ► Strategie planning for support and growth of the infrastructure: Hard as it may be, given how quickly and unpredictably the technology changes, ongoing efforts must be made to assess the infrastructure in the light of advances in technology and of institutional goals and to develop a plan for the growth of the infrastructure and the resources needed to support it. This process must take place at both the institutional and the departmental levels, with each level influencing the other in making critical decisions. In the absence of clairvoyant powers to foresee how technology and education will develop, the best we can do is to rely on flLlllL 28 (1999) Joining the Multimedia Revolution: Infrastructure, Support, and Other Challenges 121 thoughtful matching of rnission and technology, based on current and emerging trends. The biggest rnistake an institution can make in strategic planning for technology is to conduct it without input from all the stakeholders on campus. 4. Curricular Innovation through Technology What evidence do we have that technology can really improve language teaching and learning? Faculty and administrators alike should maintain a healthy skepticism about the real instructional value added by technology. Some of our uses of expensive technology (e.g., replacing overhead transparencies with PowerPoint slides) certainly deserve harsher scrutiny. Empirical evidence proving the efficacy of instructional technology is relatively scarce and very hard to gather, because of the many variables involved and because of the difficulty of conducting valid longitudinal studies. Nevertheless, we must be prepared to articulate convincing pedagogical reasons to rationalize the vast expenditures being made for information technology. In approaching the difficult process of changing their pedagogical practice to exploit new technologies, faculty must imagine strategies and activities that extend beyond the scope of traditional teaching practices to think "outside the box", as entrepreneurs are fond of saying. The important questions then become: What can we do with the new technology in language instruction that was not possible before? What specific technology-based activities help us reach our goals better? Recently, a new set of standards (Standards, 1996) for language learning in the U. S. were written by and for language educators at all levels. Five broad goals emerged as themes of these standards: (1) communicate in languages other than English; (2) gain knowledge and understanding of other cultures; (3) connect with other disciplines and acquire information; (4) develop insight into the nature of language and culture; and (5) participate in multilingual communities at home and around the world. Technologyespecially multimedia and Internet technologies combined can be applied effectively as a lever to help learners achieve each of these worthy goals. Indisputably, the most revolutionary change in our use of computers and of networks in the last decade is the astonishing growth of the Internet and the World Wide Web. While advanced telecommunications media, especially satellite technology, have provided us with our first real taste of a global society, the Internet takes the global connection a step further into the personal sphere (Segaller 1999: 358-359): 'The Internet has created virtual communities. For the first time since the population dispersal of the industrial revolution, there's a means for communicating with everyone in one's chosen community. [...] When we were human beings in small tribes hunting and gathering, everybody you had to deal with was somebody you saw every day. We're a species that's based on communication with our entire tribe. As the population grew and people had to split up into smaller tri bes and separate, they got to the point where they would never see each other for their whole Jives. The Internet is the first technology that lets us have many-to-many communication with anybody on the planet. In a sense, it's brought us back to something we lost thousands ofyears ago". For education in general and language instruction in particular, we cannot help but anticipate the profound impact this phenomenon will have, especially if we have any measure of IFL1lllL 28 ( 1999) 122 Sue K. Otto commitment to the goals for language leaming outlined in the Standards. We have only just begun to explore the use of the Internet for effective language instruction, but we intuitively sense its enormous potential to transform both teaching and leaming through access to new information and people: access to a vast pool of current authentic foreign language materials in digital form on the Web; access to digital instructional resources that we and educators at other institutions have designed and produced; access to other learners and teachers and to native speakers in communities of our choosing. 5. Motivating Faculty Innovation In interviews with faculty software developers, Rickard (1999) explores the issue of faculty resistance to technology in higher education. These faculty developers recited a familiar litany of concems that inhibit faculty engagement with technology: fear of unfamiliar hardware and software (and of trying to keep up with constant changes in it); lack of support from faculty peers who evaluate one's work for tenure and promotion; little or no recognition of creative development work in tenure and promotion decisions; worry that the material is only temporarily more engaging because of the novelty of the technology; prejudice that existing examples are inferior the result of merely transferring, at great effort and expense, old materials and methods to new media, without any improvement in instruction; and the need for a clear policy on intellectual property for materials developed in school-supported projects, particularly as related to distance education enterprises now emerging in higher education. Institutions with a substantial stake in the expansion of instructional technology recognize these problems, but resolving them will not be an easy or speedy process. ► Adapting the tenure and promotion system: The traditional university reward system in the United States (based on assessments of scholarship, teaching, and service) has been slow in broadening its scope to include creative efforts in instructional technology. Administrators and peers are inclined to relegate technology-based development projects to the category of teaching, along with textbook publication. For many of our colleagues, good teaching has never commanded the same respect in academe as good research. The contrasting status of the two can be likened to class division between servants and masters. For those colleagues who prize research above all eise, teaching designing and managing the transfer of knowledge and skills to learners is essentially a service function within the university. They regard it as an intellectually routine, even mundane, duty. In their view, research the creation of new knowledge and insights clearly holds a higher status. Engaging in research challenges ones intellectual capacities. Researchers chart their own course, exploring and mastering new terrain, expanding the knowledge of the universe. Major projects in technology, however, often traverse the gap between research and teaching as they are traditionally defined. Such endeavors require development of specialized expertise, long-term commitrnent (often to the exclusion of other print-based scholarship), extemal funding, institutional commitments of hardware and support staff, and extensive team effort of an interdisciplinary nature. In short, these efforts are often in- IFLIIIL 28 (] 999) Joining the Multimedia Revolution: lnfrastructure, Support, and Other Challenges 123 distinguishable in scope and structure from major research projects in the social and natural sciences. Boyer argues the need for change in academic priorities in his insightful book, Scholarship Reconsidered (1990, 34-35): "We conclude that the füll range of faculty talent must be more creatively assessed. lt is unacceptable, we believe, to go on using research and publication as the primary criterion for tenure and promotion when other educational obligations are required. [...] Clearly, the time has come not only to reconsider the meaning of scholarship but also to take the next step and consider ways by which the faculty reward system can be improved" (34-35). "Let's acknowledge that scholarship often finds expression in other ways as well. Preparing quality computer software, for example, is increasingly a function of serious scholars.[...] Designing new courses and participating in curricular innovations are examples of yet another type ofprofessional work deserving recognition" (36). ► Supportfor faculty initiatives: Aside from modifying tenure and promotion criteria, institutions must confront the other obstacles that raise faculty resistance to technology fear of the technology and constant changes in technology, concerns about the efficacy and quality of technology-based materials, and need for guidance toward truly innovative applications of technology in the curriculum. Overcoming these obstacles requires a variety of support mechanisms to educate faculty, to enable development initiatives,. and to deliver instructional technology resources to the university community. In addition to the complex technical infrastructure explored earlier in this chapter, the support structure requires significant human resources as well. Encouraging faculty to use technology begins with recurring opportunities for training workshops and seminars and access to up-to-date equipment for exploration. For example, the University of lowa administration has established a program designed to bootstrap large numbers of faculty into the realm of instructional technology through summer workshop sessions that teach the fundamentals of a suite of software, including Web-based course tools. Workshop participation is rewarded with a grant to purchase or upgrade computer equipment. Through hands-on experience during the workshops, faculty members become comfortable with the technology and build expertise with technology resources. Only then can they take on the challenging task of imagining how best to retool their curricula to exploit the technology to meet instructional goals. Typically, faculty get their feet wet with technology by implementing software and strategies developed elsewhere, adapting them to their own agendas. When faculty graduate to a higher level of engagement with technology through development projects, additional support measures are needed: matching funds for grant proposals, significant release time, development hardware and software, authoring and programming support, consultation on instructional design and copyright issues, and technical assistance to resolve hardware and software issues. Whether the impetus for technology-enhanced instruction derives from implementation ventures or from full-blown development projects, additional support personnel is needed to manage the delivery process. Faculty should expect help in both lab and classroom ]F]Lllll[_, 28 (1999) 124 Sue K. Otto settings with initial user training on hardware and software as well as ongoing monitoring and troubleshooting problems with software and hardware. 6. Future Change in Higher Education through Technology The potential of new technologies, particularly multimedia applications and the Internet, to provide new opporiunities for learner-centered instruction has sparked renewed interest in educating students at the post-secondary level, both traditional residential students as well as non-traditional students outside academic institutions. In higher education we hear an increasingly urgent buzz about "distance education", "distributed learning", "virtual classrooms and universities", "just-in-time instruction", "anytime, anyplace instruction", and "life-long-learning", all enabled by new networked digital technologies. Moreover, current educational principles dictate reforms in instruction toward a model of student-centered learning, which concentrates on authentic, challenging tasks that provide relevant learning experiences for students and that lead them to understand broad concepts and develop strategies for finding and analyzing information that they need. The greatest challenge to faculty and institutions will be to adapt successfully to the changing expectations and prospects for education enabled by new technologies. The profits to be gained by offering "just in time" instruction to people in the workplace and to highly motivated students who need specialized instruction not available to them locally have attracted the attention of for-profit corporations. As experts in higher education and technology point out (Katz 1999: 32-34; Heterick 1998: 56), businesses in the "infotainment" industry, including broadcasters, software companies, publishers, cable and telecommunications companies, and Internet service providers, are positioning themselves to become major players in the business of acquiring, packaging and distributing technologybased information and instruction. Commercial competition will most certainly prompt traditional academic institutions to rethink their educational goals and strategies and perhaps to change how they currently provide instruction to learners. As the most obvious provider of content, the academy might well form alliances with the corporate world to subsidize packaging and delivery of educational information and courses offered through hightechnology channels. Heterick (1998: 56) speculates that future models of educational competition and cooperation will take time to evolve: "lt may weil be that some of our universities will decide that their comparative advantage lies in operating highly personal, mediated, residential teaching experiences. If so,.no doubt a whole new series of postsecondary learning opportunities will emerge from the commercial sector of our economy. [...] The next decade or two are likely to be somewhat messy as both our historic institutions of high education and new commercial entries decide in which segments of the learning market they will compete and in which they will cooperate. Likewise faculty and researchers will be struggling to understand how to maximize the comparative advantages of technology and human mediation. Undoubtedly we will see many hybrids as historic institutions align themselves with commercial entities to develop the capability to address some new or expanded market segment". IFLllllL 28 ( 1999) Joining the Multimedia Revolution: lnfrastructure, Support, and Other Challenges 125 Like it or not, we must at least consider the real possibility that our very own institutions will enter the marketplace, motivated and influenced by the forces of competition, changing demand and profit. In particular, foreign language instruction would rank high in marketability, given the demand for linguistic and cultural proficiency in international econornic and political arenas. Certainly, the notion of education as a business commodity tobe marketed seems antithetical to our traditional view of higher education within ivy-covered walls. The specter of franchised course materials delivered like so much fast food strikes fear and skepticism in the hearts of academics, who have long cherished a warm fuzzy feeling for the personal touch of face-to-face instruction. This faculty response can, to some degree, be attributed largely to the traditional view of the teacher as the central focus of the learning process, the all-knowing one who dispenses pearls of wisdom to adorn the rninds of impressionable students. However, our traditional face-to-face model of education is already being challenged by the successes of experimental virtual universities, such as the Caliber Learning Network (http: / / www.caliberlearning.com/ ) and Western Governors University (http: / / www.wgu.edu/ wgu/ index.html), a virtual educational initiative of several western states in the U. S. (Farrington 1999: 82). These organizations are delivering instruction for credit via digital technologies primarily to non-traditional students who want instruction and can pay for it, but who cannot or do not wish to relocate to a residential campus. Administrators at many colleges and universities, concerned about being left behind in the dust of new instructional enterprises, are seriously pursuing the possibilities of delivery of instruction through technology. Technology-based instructional environments offer them the educational advantages of reaching more students with highly-specialized content (e.g., the less commonly taught languages) and of creating broad new communities of motivated learners. From a financial perspective, they are lured by opportunities not only to increase revenues by delivering instruction through communication networks to students outside the walls of the institution, but to save money by providing their resident students access to specialized courses that will not then have be funded internally. Network-accessible digital libraries will provide professors and students at many institutions with greatly expanded resources for teaching and learning, relieving the strain on local library acquisition budgets. We can speculate about what impact the interest in virtual instruction might have on language programs in residential universities in the not-too-distant future. Traditionally lowenrollment courses such as upper-level specialty courses and courses in the lesscommonly-taught languages might be offered to a larger audience at a profit. A French professor could deliver her course on Renaissance Women Writers not only to the three local students who want to take the course, but also to eleven other students from several other campuses who are also interested in this topic. Her institution receives tuition money from all the students and the professor receives additional compensation for the increased teaching load. Institutions will not be obliged to stretch scarce resources to offer everything students might need for a program of study. A Dean might ask why he should spend the money to support a Yoruba program for African Studies students, if these students could take virtual Yoruba classes from another institution? Resources can be concentrated in one location to build programs of more depth, especially in areas such as the less commonlytaught languages. Not many in our profession are convinced that languages can be taught effectively at a IFJL1111L 28 (1999) 126 Sue K. Otto distance especially beginningand intermediate-level language classes. After all, most faculty still struggle mightily to determine the best uses of technology in classroom and laboratory practices on campus. Distance education technologies produce an extra layer of confusion, superimposed on existing underdeveloped notions of how best to implement new technologies. Moreover, most language teachers are loath to give up the valuable face-toface social interactions that occur so spontaneously in the classroom. They are reluctant to hop on the distance-education bandwagon, when early experiments indicate that, at best, it's better than nothing. In fact, the conclusion that distance language learning can't work well may be premature a temporary reflection of the state of the technology. We must strive to think creatively and continue to probe evolving communication technologies for good solutions to the current drawbacks of distance language education. 7. Conclusion Joining and sustaining the multimedia revolution is not a trivial undertaking. Universities are making enormous investments in a complex infrastructure that must meet the needs of many constituencies with many different interests. The elements of infrastructure range from discipline-specific technology centers (such as those supporting media-based language instruction) to open technology/ computer laboratories, technology-equipped presentation classrooms, computer classrooms, local-area networks linked together with very-high-speed fiber-optic networks. The infrastructure will change constantly, evolving to accommodate both advances in technology and local priorities. Investments in the infrastructure are protected by skillful management. Decisions about the infrastructure technology must reflect a balance between insti-tutional administrative priorities and those of departments, and strategic planning must be conducted with broad input from all levels of the campus community. The capital investment in technology must be matched by a major investment in qualified technical support personnel who can maintain the elements of the infrastructure to ensure their reliability. Astonishing new technological tools and resources that promise to revolutionize what and how we are able to teach foreign languages and cultures are enabled by an up-to-date infrastructure. Combined multimedia and Internet technologies have afforded us tremendous opportunities for authentic language experiences with authentic foreign texts and have allowed the creation of new channels of communication among communities of learners. However, substantial challenges face language professionals in successfully exploiting the technology already at their disposal. Curricular innovation using technology will happen too slowly unless we address the concerns of faculty who resist these changes. Therefore, institutions must take active measures to recognize work with technology in tenure and promotion decisions. In addition, they must provide support mechanisms for faculty in the form of training workshops and seminars, computer hardware and software for exploration and development, release time, technical consultation, programrning assistance, and help in managing and delivering instructional technology programs in ! ab and classroom settings. Advances in technology and telecommunications have begun to influence the outlook for traditional institutions of higher education. Already, the success of independent, virtual IFJL1J! L 28 (] 999) Joining the Multimedia Revolution: Infrastructure, Support, and Other Challenges 127 universities using networked digital technologies portends the growth of distance education opportunities delivered by other for-profit enterprises in the private sector. Not wanting to be left behind, many universities have begun to explore ways to build (or participate to their advantage in) new distance-education ventures; and foreign language instruction, particularly for less-commonly-taught languages, has been identified as a likely target of opportunity for distance learning scenarios. Although we cannot predict how all the technologies will ultimately alter institutions of higher education and our work as language professions, we can be certain that technology will be a significant, defining factor in the future of language learning and teaching. References BOYER, Ernest L. (1990): Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate. Princeton, New Jersey: The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement ofTeaching. FARRINGTON, Gregory C. ( 1999): "The New Technologiesand the Future ofResidential Undergraduate Education". In: KATZ, Richard N.: Dancing with the Devil: Information Technology and the New Competition in Higher Education. 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