Contemporary faculty members teach at a time when students’ learning is influenced by multiple factors,
including increasingly diverse student populations with differing learning needs and styles, rising tuition, funding
cuts, evolving societal demands and expectations, and evolving new media. For example, both public and private
sectors expect universities to prepare workers to participate in a digital economy, a globally integrated knowledge
economy that requires workers to produce and use information and communication technologies (ICTs) for
collaboration, teamwork, innovation, and skills to draw on diverse sets of expertise (Dede, 2011; Ito et al. 2008).
The shifting landscape of the U.S. economy, from an industrial to information economy, suggests that faculty
must become innovative and transformative in using new media to prepare students to acquire the knowledge and
skills to become productive individuals in a globalized world where information is available instantaneously and
interactions occur across national and geographical boundaries.