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		Technology Enhanced Learning with Market Appeal: this is what makes the University of Dayton's Personalized Virtual Room attractive to Students, Parents, Faculty and Staff By Brian Young Chief Technologist and Director of Educational Technology Initiatives at the University of Dayton Think of the attractive educational opportunity afforded to your college/university if you could communicate with all of your perspective incoming first-year class in early June, nearly three months before your first-year students set foot on campus for the traditional first-year orientation program. How excited will faculty be to use a technology to actively engage students in an educational dialogue before they actually see the students in class? What are the potential benefits to your college or university if you had a way to appeal to your prospective student market three months before the first day of class? What does it mean for your institution to allow first-year students to feel connected and apart of your community before the first day of class? The University of Dayton, engaged in developing technology enhanced learning environments, has developed a program dubbed "Virtual Room" that generates market appeal with technology. Some of the things we wanted to accomplish, three months before students arrived on campus, with The University of Dayton Personalized Virtual Room program: Generate Excitement for first-year students 3 months before they get to campus Eliminate the traditional mass "snail-mail" approach to connecting with students Reduce costs of introducing a first-year class to our campus Generate educational components: teaching the first-year experience course and Orientation materials before students get to campus Create a connected learning environment that let roommates connect with each other Get first-year students connected to their floor-mates and with their Resident Assistant Get students reading University manuals and policies (without the cost of print and distribution) Get students using their University provided email account and weaning them off of their high-school accounts Reduce the cost for parents during the summer months when roommates spend hours on the phone (long distance) getting to know each other Find a learning environment that provides colleges and universities with a strategic advantage in recruiting and retaining students What is the Personalized Virtual Room? Each interactive room features contact information on the roommates, an instant chat system for private messages between roommates, a checklist of suggested items to bring to campus, and information and interactive training sessions on the computer that will be waiting for each first-year student. Students can also see pictures and actual video of the room in which they will live. The reading list for first-year experience is provided, so to are components to the university orientation program, and a profile search allows incoming students to search for other residents with similar interests. All of this within a nice clean private web interface that looks and feels like a college/ university residence. This year the Virtual Room tapped into a hidden treasure, otherwise known as first-year student vigor. The energy and excitement that incoming first-year students have before they arrive onto your campus. These new students are extremely enthusiastic, willing to learn, and excited about putting forth a good impression. Moreover, we found the following astounding facts to be true since the inception of the University of Dayton Personalized Virtual Room: Out of 1800 incoming first-year students we found an astonishing 1500 students logged in within 2 days of receiving their Virtual Room username and password. Within 1 week we found that 1600 students had logged in and begun their educational journey at The University of Dayton. When each student logged into their Personalized Virtual Room the average time spent interacting with their roommates, floor-mates, RA etc and or preparing for their University of Dayton experience was 1.5 hours. If you are reading this article with a critical eye then you should be asking about the 150 or so students who did not log-in to their Virtual Room. Why did they not log in? What reasons did they have for not being apart of this technology enhanced learning environment? This makes for a great follow-up article and we will be collecting this information for a future follow-up piece. However, our early collection of information suggests that some of the reasons students did not participate in their Virtual Room environment were: They were not sure if they were really coming to the university They were away all summer traveling and never got the chance the get their username and password until 3 or 4 days before school started They did not have a computer at home and did not want to spend time online at the local library As the data gets collected and analyzed we will know more. What are the Lessons Learned? There is massive potential for institutions of higher learning to cultivate the energy and eagerness towards learning that recent high school graduates have during their summer months before coming to college. There is enormous potential for learning three months before first-year students arrive on campus. These students want to interact and they want to be apart of the campus experience the minute they receive their high school diplomas—give them the chance! Author of Growing Up Digital, Donald Tapscott suggests that students today want instant gratification and instant access to information tailored to their wants and wishes. Students do not want to merely surf for information but rather they have a thirst to interact with it. The Personalized Virtual Room provides that access so that students do not have to wait to interact with their roommate, with their hall-mates, with their RA or with their Orientation materials. Customized interaction also makes a connection with students. There exists a strong link between students who feel connected to their university and student retention rates. The more you can do to provide connected opportunities for your students, the more you can do to make them excited and attracted to your university, the more likely you are to see higher retention rates, stronger campus communities, and more excitement around notion of teaching and learning. Another lesson learned is to make your own connections when implementing a project. Work closely with a cross-section of your campus when launching such an initiative, you may find that there are uses for the Personalized Virtual Room that you were not thinking of. For example, next year we plan to allow for minority and international student populations to interact with each other via their Virtual Room. We are also linking students together via majors. And, our Humanities Base faculty will be holding live Virtual Room chats, with the context of the chat being summer readings, with incoming first-years students. Kelly Zito in her paper The Digital Difference describes the power of technology with regards to first-year students when she quotes Professor Brian Smith "For first-year students especially, it is important for them to have communities that they feel apart of. If the computer can help include them, it will enhance their educational experience." You may be thinking at this point; "Is there a benefit to have the Virtual Room on my campus?". I would hope that those of us in higher education would remember the timeless advice of Benjamin Franklin "An investment in knowledge pays the best interest." Giving first-year students the chance to get to know: each other, their roommates, their advisor, their floor-mates, is an investment that has truly paid off. For further information about the University of Dayton Virtual Room, questions on implementation, please contact Brian A. Young Chief Technologist and Director of Educational Technology Initiatives at the University of Dayton; bay@udayton.edu Citations: Holeton, Richard. Composing Cyberspace: Collection of Essays on Identity, Community and Knowledge in the Electronic Age by; page 409; McGraw Hill Press 1998 ISBN 0070295484 Tapscott, Donald; Growing up Digital: The Rise of the Net Generation; McGraw Hill 1998. ISBN: 0070633614 About the Author Brian Young; MPA, while pursuing his PhD in the field of technology and public policy, Brian is the Chief Technologist and Director of Educational Technology Initiatives at the University of Dayton. He has published and presented within the complex boundaries of technology communications and public policy including presentations before the United States Senate Technologies and Urban Affairs Committee and policy research for ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigning Names and Numbers). His areas of research include social and policy implications of the growing "digital divide" on inner-city urban America, as well as policy studies surrounding local and state use and implementation of wireless technology.