[h2o] Faculty Workshop

[Charles Nesson <nesson@law.harvard.edu>]

I am pleased to report that on Friday, May 14, 1999, one hundred thirty
interested faculty from across Harvard University, all leaders on their
schools, gathered for a faculty workshop on Use of Technology in Teaching
and Learning. We first considered a problem in medical education presented
to us by Dr. Michael Rosenblatt of Harvard Medical. He described our
university's loss to managed care of teaching environments in great
teaching hospitals, and the resulting student need for virtual patients on
which to practice before submitting real patients to the knife. Next David
Upton of Harvard Business led us to consider the plight of a hypothetical
junior faculty member who developed an online educational substantive and
technologal teaching environment that allowed her, and would allow other
teachers, to teach music so that kids really learn IT. She had created the
kernal of what could become a global portal for learning music - a resource
of immense potential public and proprietary value. Who owns IT? Who
controls IT? Is her creative enterprise Harvard's work for hire? Should she
stop working on the project while this is figured out? Will she get tenure?
When she doesn't, what then? Next Eric Mazur and Richard Nolan demonstrated
education technologies (teaching tools) that have been developed by
teachers and staff at their respective schools, Physics (Arts & Sciences)
and Business. We ended by beginning a discussion of how all schools might
better share, and ended finally by thanking our provost, Harvey Fineberg,
for sponsoring and convening our meeting.

eon