| | February - 202019NEWER TECHNOLOGIES SWEEPING INTO THE EDUCATION SPACE Technologies can make a massive impact in the education sector. In an interview with Education Technology Insights, Joel Reeves, Assistant Vice-Chancellor and Chief Information Officer, University of Tennessee, explains that modern and advanced technologies has created massive transformation in the operations of the university as a whole. Instructors seem to enjoy the wireless connectivity to the classroom stack as they can be active amongst the students.In light of your experience, could you please talk about the emerging trends that you see in the Education space?I started my career at the University of Tennessee as an undergraduate student in information technology. In 30 years, I went up the ranks in my career and worked in several positions. I played the role of an administrator of applications in my initial days. Over time, I became the head of the Administrative Student Information Systems, and later on, moved on to an associate CEO's role. I had my hand in a number of things and then became the CEO in 2012.Within these 30 years, I have seen tremendous changes in the education space. First and foremost, I recognized that a manager needs good people around him to help him execute his duty and thus lead his functional area to success. I am blessed to be surrounded by strong and dedicated staff, considering their discipline. They are very savvy, keeping up with current trends. They are trying to keep us on the right track. Today, we need to be vigilant and clever to see down the road, and look at what is coming. We also have to understand that we can't just drop our existing systems and technologies, because when you're managing these services for an enterprise like the University of Tennessee, adoption of a new system or technology won't happen overnight.It is evident that some technologies take years to roll out. Let's consider the adoption of 5G for instance. 5G is going to be wonderful and impactful, across all industry verticals. This wireless technology is going to be a game-changing innovation, not only in terms of businesses but also in other segments of human life. However, the sad part is that all devices in the world are not capable of adopting 5G, thus making several people stay away from the innovation. Therefore, as a University, we should be flexible enough to allow everybody to catch up with new technologies. In this scenario, we can't just drop the older technologies and adopt the new because, at the end of the day, the instructors and the students need the technology that serves their functional area.What according to you, are the significant implications of technology in the Education Space?I would like to say that technologies can make a massive impact in the education sector. Everyone associated with the arena is using multiple mobile devices to deal with their daily activities intuitively. They use it, but don't want to know about the technology. I think it has become so ingrained and pervasive that people don't want to be technology experts anymore. They want the technology to make their job easy--be it learning, teaching, or research. They want the technology to align with their skills seamlessly.To this end, what we have to do is make the right combination of old and new technologies to serve the wide variety of people associated with the education space. Some people are obsessed with old technologies and do not want a change at all. Simultaneously, we have students who are keen to adopt newer technologies. We have faculty staffs who are working with us for more than 30 years. Therefore, it is necessary to maintain the right balance between the needs of this diversified population. We have mobile phones, wireless systems, social media platforms, collaboration By Joel Reeves, Assistant Vice-Chancellor & Chief Information Officer, University of TennesseeCIO INSIGHTS
< Page 9 | Page 11 >