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That said, I have seen a general increase in the use of technologies that are free. Blogs, wikis, Google apps, Twitter have all come to be used effectively in classrooms, but not because an educational technologist was there to make it happen. Most of the uses I've seen have come from the faculty themselves, who increasingly are using these tools in their own work, so it becomes natural to them to try to use them in their teaching. No extra staff needed. And usually, no cost for the tools themselves.

The buttons link to pages that simply provide a place to upload a document, which is exactly what most instructors do: upload word–processed files of their classroom materials. They are encouraged to “plug in” their content under the appropriate category instead of envisioning a translation of their individual pedagogical style into an online environment. Blackboard “tends to encourage a linear pathway through the content” [3], and its default is to support easy uploading and text entry to achieve that goal.

Even after several years of working with the CMS, faculty requests for help focus on what the technology can do, rather than how their pedagogical goals can be achieved.

Morgan notes such improvement as a “side effect of the use of the software rather than a direct result of its use” [5] — those willing to play around with the features tend to discover new directions for their teaching.