DO STUDENTS AND LECTURERS FEEL THE SAME ABOUT COMPUTERS?

Full integration of Information Technology into teaching and learning at universities requires high levels of involvement with the technology and greater commitment to making effective use of it from teaching staff as well as from their students. As lecturers progress from the use of IT for routine productivity gains to its introduction into core teaching activities, their students have to adjust to new modes of learning. To be successful, both lecturers and students should adapt their teaching and learning approaches to the use of IT in harmony with each other, otherwise the new methods which IT imply may fall short of their expectations. This study examined some of the attitudes which university lecturers and students in the same institution have towards computers. The results suggest that students are both more involved with and more anxious about computers than are their lecturers. As academic staff develop IT for instructional uses, they should not confuse their students' apparent enthusiasm for computers with a willingness to adopt IT as a learning tool. To use IT successfully in teaching and learning, an institution depends on the willingness of staff to adopt such measures as well as on their ability to win over their students to use them.