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This Web site is dedicated to developing "Visions Worth Working Toward" for improving teaching and learning through more thoughtful and cost-effective uses of information technology. Our work here is based on related activities on the AAHESGIT Listserver and at the 3rd Annual Teaching, Learning, and Technology Roundtable Summer Institute (July 12-15, 1997 -- Phoenix, Arizona) of the American Association for Higher Education.

Every institution needs a Vision to focus the hopes and work of its members; a picture of the future that might be realized if enough people believe in it and work to achieve it. A "Vision Worth Working Toward" is more than a prediction, wish, or nightmare. A prediction is a description of the future likely to occur independent of anyone's preference or labor. A wish is a piece of the future someone hopes will happen without any special effort. A nightmare is a glimpse of a future to be feared and avoided. Each individual, department, school, college or university needs instead its own "Vision Worth Working Toward" to focus efforts and guide decisions.

Our goal is to provide several useful models of Visions Worth Working Toward through our work together here and in meetings of the Teaching, Learning, and Technology Roundtable (TLTR) Program. We hope these models will become the foundation on which you build your own Vision Worth Working Toward and then begin to achieve it! We hope to explore issues and implications related to several significant Vision themes that have emerged in wide ranging discussions on our campuses, in a variety of forums and on this list such as like "Narrowing the Widening Gap," "Lifelong Teaching and Lifelong Learning," and "Understanding & Improving Face-To-Face Group Work."

We urge you to explore the operational implications and related issues for your visions in terms of institutional structure, support services, and infrastructure. You will do this through your inputs (threaded web discussions) on dimensions such as:

  • institutional structure
  • availability of and access to information technology
  • class schedules
  • classroom configuration
  • the mixture of face-to-face meetings, communicating over distance and/or asynchronously, and independent work:
  • training and instructional materials
  • quality and availability of support staff
  • mixtures of media types
The intent is to enable you to develop scenarios, strategies and action plans as you move toward your preferred vision.
You can participate here in FOUR ways:
  1. Add to the discussion in a Forum by responding directly to one or more of the comments from someone else. How to reply
  2. Add a new thread to an existing Forum. A "thread" is a line of discussion within a Forum that is distinct from the main points raised by replies you have found listed to date.
  3. Add a new Vision. You can add your vision to the "Your Visions" Forum by creating and and posting a new thread within that forum. Follow the steps in the Add a New Thread (above) specifying the Your Visions forum as the location.
  4. Just read and enjoy what has already been written here!


    Click Here to Go To =>Vision Statements

    This exploration of how to use the World Wide Web to develop several Visions Worth Working Toward was "launched" by Steven W. Gilbert in his role as moderator of the AAHESGIT Listserver and as Director of the AAHE Teaching, Learning, and Technology Roundtable Program. Several of the original Vision Statements and other related material were distributed first via AAHESGIT. The structure of this vision development process was first suggested and further shaped by Vijay Kumar of MIT. Phil Long of William Paterson University is responsible for the design and implementation. Stephen C. Ehrmann of AAHE has also contributed to the ideas and the process. The work of Susan Saltrick of Addison-Wesley Longman and Edward Hallowell of Harvard also enrich our Vision development efforts in many ways. We look forward to the participation of many more, both on-line and in person during our 3rd Annual TLTR Summer Institute in Phoenix (July 12-15, 1997).

    For further information about the Summer Institute please contact Amanda Antico
    If you have any questions about the content of the Summer Institute, please contact Steve Gilbert

    This page is maintained by the staff of IRT. Please send us questions, suggestions or comments.

    This page was last modified 16:29 on Saturday, 21 June 1997.