A Growing Microcosm: Academic Technology
Located in the basement of Bosler Hall are the offices of the academic technology staff, the Makery, multiple podcast rooms, a music studio and more. The Dickinsonian had the opportunity to meet with James D’Annibale, director of academic technology, who detailed the ways in which academic technology permeates different parts of campus.
D’Annibale emphasized that the “student voice matters to me,” and that the priority of the Academic Technology staff is to meet student needs. His role, he explains, is based in managing his team and helping demonstrate the importance of academic technology via meetings with students, faculty and administration. Each member of the staff has a specialized role, and D’Annibale describedhow each uniquely fulfills a role within academic technology. Academic technology including a wide range of resources including the Tech Toolbox, Moodle, and Smart classrooms to name a couple.
Todd Bryant specializes in Language Technology. Before ChatGPT, he was working on AI centered around foreign language learning. Brenda Landis is currently the Multimedia Specialist, however soon she will begin a new role focused on creating opportunities for students to develop necessary skills beyond what is taught in the classroom to fostersuccess after Dickinson. D’Annibale describes Landis’ new role as being an “open ended” position that does not exist in other colleges. Thomas Smith, the technician for academic computing, first came to Dickinson as a student in the 1970s and was hired as a student worker and later a full time employee working with technology for the school. D’Annibale described Smith as the “classroom guy.” Anna Kerstetter, the Media Center manager, oversees the student workers in the Media Center and supervises the Maker’s Space. Finally, Ryan Burke is the web development specialist who, among other roles, helps set up course blogs and has recently been working with the Dickinson College Archives and Special Collections to help build their updated website.
D’Annibale says that, lately, he has had the opportunity to go to classrooms and teach about AI. He sits on the Presidential Working Group on AI and has helped in the creation of the AI Symposium taking place on Monday, April 14. He wonders how AI might help students, describing its potential uses acting like a “middle school teacher,” in how it helps plan schedules, establish personalized learning strategies and so on.
Recently, D’Annibale had the opportunity to work with a psychology class in an experiment where AI was told to emulate the personality of a character from “The Sopranos” and students were able to interview it. D’Annibale is always thinking of new ways to teach students about AI and relate it to their classroom experience, and enourages any students who have ideas about how to improve academic technology to “come talk to us”.
During The Dickinsonian’s talk with D’Annibale, the switch from Moodle to D2L Brightspace in the coming years was brought up, D’Annibale explained that one of the reasons for a phased swap during the Fall 2025 and Spring 2026 semesters is “consistency of experience for students.” He explained that although Brightspace will be the new Learning Management System (LMS) on campus, professors will not be forced to use it in their classes. D’Annibale feels that in a liberal arts environment, professors should have the ability to use what platforms make the most sense for their class and what helps meet students’ academic needs.
D’Annibale ended the conversation re-emphasizing that he firmly believes that there is a big future for education technology at Dickinson, and that his office is always open to students who want to learn more, offer their own ideas, or find more ways to access educational opportunities via academic technology.
Over my years at Dickinson College I have found that there are aspects of campus and of the Dickinson experience that students are unaware of. This lack of knowledge, I feel, limits the abilities of students to fully be a part of the Dickinson community because they do not know basic information about how the campus operates. The purpose of this column is to help explain the basics of how Dickinson runs, from Student Senate to meal plans and more. I hope to shed light on how the microcosm of Dickinson College grows. If you would like to suggest a topic please email [email protected].
