Professors go high tech, from city simulations to voice grades - Randy Myers, Mercury News

St. Mary's College professor Barry Eckhouse leaves no paper trail. In fact, he uses no paper at all. The tech-smart educator's thoroughly modern approach to instruction scraps traditional higher education tools such as No. 2 pencils and the error-seeking red pen. He's hardly alone in tapping into the rich high-tech vein. More and more, progressive profs embrace pod-casting, video games and virtual environments as a new way to teach. Most of Eckhouse's MBA-seeking grad students at the Moraga campus are relieved they no longer need to decipher scrawls and scribbles. They log on to the Internet to hear Eckhouse's online comments as he scrolls through their papers. Adding that auditory component plays up nuances handwritten notations miss, said Marc Beal, who is enrolled in one of Eckhouse's hybrid courses, which combines online and in-class instruction.

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