ONLINE EDUCATION: DISRUPTIVE INNOVATION

Clayton Christensen, Harvard Business School, in a reprint from the Forum for the Future of Higher Education, 2008, suggests that Colleges and Universities, just like the corporate world are undergoing a sort of "disruptive innovation and catalytic change." (Christensen, 2008). The online environment and the many new technology based tools, used alone or in conjunction with that growing environment are fundamentally changing some of the underlying premises of higher education and the thoughts of how student needs in higher education are met. This paper will discuss the use and acceptance of some of the new technological tools now available including the use of instant messaging or chat, skype, twitter, facebook, Second Life within the context of the results of a survey of users in a private, Catholic University. The survey sought to discover user and potential user attitudes toward their level of satisfaction and use of the technology, their feelings in terms of technology efficacy an how they believe they could benefit from new and specific kinds of support apart from that which is traditionally given to instructors in higher education. The significance of the paper is that as faculty, we are constantly bombarded with "new" and "unique" ways to incorporate technological tools into our teaching and on occasion may even be pressured into believing that the tool itself is what is enabling or encouraging learning among our students. This paper will look at actual users and give insight into "real life" experiences of faculty users.