Projectors with hundreds of buttons, document cameras and DVD players may leave some professors reminiscing about the days when ELMO was only a character on Sesame Street.

With new technology flooding classrooms each year, some instructors struggle to learn new teaching instruments semester after semester.

Some students also say it is frustrating when professors choose to use equipment that doesn’t seem to want to work during their lectures.

Farah Jamil, freshman in pre-architecture, said she found herself wondering about an instructor’s ability to integrate technology into the classroom when an interior designer from India came to speak to a design class.

The woman was trying to give a PowerPoint presentation about India’s traditional interior design, but the equipment wasn’t working properly, Jamil said.

“It took about 20 minutes of messing with the equipment until they called someone in to fix the problem,” she said. “She came all this way to give a presentation – I think they should have been ready.”

For some professors who have been using different teaching methods for decades, it can be even more difficult to integrate technology in the classroom.

“I had this older teacher once who always tried to use PowerPoint, but he could never figure out how to open it correctly,” said Stephanie LeGore, sophomore in nutritional science. “He would keep trying all these different ways. It would waste a lot of class time.”

But not all professors choose to spend class time figuring out how to use technology.

“I don’t use [new technology] very much, but I am in the process of learning it,” said Mark Stankard, assistant professor of architecture. “I am learning how to use the ELMO and PowerPoint. Last year, I had a student teach me Photoshop and Premiere.”

But on rare occasions, Stankard said he has had times when technology failed him when he wanted to show slides or give a presentation.

“I kind of deal with it, spend a little time trying to fix it and then you have to creatively change the way you teach,” Stankard said.

Although many believe technology in the classroom is the wave of the future, it is often difficult for instructors to use the equipment if they have not done it before.

“We get frequent calls, especially early in [the] semester when [instructors] are attempting to use the technology,” said Donald Rieck, director of the Instructional Technology Center. “Sometimes it is as high as 50 or 60 calls a day.”

Besides coming to classrooms to work on equipment when a teacher is having difficulty, instructional technology professionals try to give professors manuals and instructional tools so professors are able to stay afloat on their own, he said.

“One thing we try to do in workshops is plan for the ability to get around problem times and problem sessions [in the classroom],” Rieck said. “We help them find backups to their plan if they have trouble with the technology. We also develop fact sheets and help sheets to help faculty over these technology hurdles.”

If an instructor doesn’t want to flip through a manual, training sessions are available at many different times of the year to help teachers properly integrate technology into the classroom.

Some professors are going to their graduate students as a way to learn the new technology.

“In our department of teacher education, we have graduate students available to work one-on-one with faculty,” said Ann Thompson, professor of curriculum and instruction. “We call this a mentoring program. It is good to have a support system when faculty are trying something new.”

Although a few professors do struggle with new technology, it is the instructors themselves who ask to have it installed for teaching purposes, Rieck said.

“There is a high demand for rooms that are technology equipped,” he said.

“Over the past 15 years, we have installed technology in 90 or so classrooms out of about 250.”

Rieck said placing technology into only one classroom costs between $18,000 and $20,000.

“That is just the technology,” he said. “[That’s] not including physical changes to the room, like good lighting, acoustics and window coverings.”

Although the cost is high, Iowa State is moving in the direction of placing more and more equipment into the classroom to make the teaching experience more realistic and exciting, Rieck said.

“Most of the large rooms on campus are equipped with technology,” he said.

“Our goal is to install technology . in classrooms all over campus.”