The University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Letters and Science now boasts over half a century of instructional technology support.

Learning Support Services at L&S turned 50 years old Sept. 16, celebrating a tradition of ongoing efforts to incorporate technology into the classroom.

In what began as a support service assisting instructors with 16mm films, slide projectors and phonographs, LSS has evolved with technology, currently utilizing MP3 players, DVD films and online learning labs.

Director of LSS Read Gilgen said the implementation of instructional technology has changed the way many people use it in their everyday academic lives.

"Technology is not just a tool for the geeks to party with, it has a service of better learning and better instruction," he said.

While technology does not increase a person's ability to learn, Gilgen said technology's importance is in the variety it gives students.

"What it provides essentially is for students with different styles to have different modes of access to the material," Gilgen said. "Studies have shown that basically students don't learn any better but they tend to retain better and also those students who are being left behind are learning better."

Meg McCall, communications director for UW Division of Instructional Technology, said instructional technology provides unique ways to deliver information to a variety of student learners.

"Everyone learns differently. Some people learn by hearing, some people learn by reading and some people learn by doing," she said. "Instructional technology has provided more means of reaching students … and that's the most important part to teaching and learning."

McCall added instructors at UW are posting "Pod Casts" — short for iPod but applicable to all MP3 players — for students to download lecture or dialogue to help "exemplify" a certain concept.

"Its just new ways of reaching students with more ways that are more relevant to them," she said. "I guess today's student, today's learner has technology as a part of all aspects of their lives and it's natural for it to be a part of the classroom too."

Gilgen said L&S has utilized instructional technology for "years and years," adding the Spanish Department began broadcasting Spanish radio in the '30s.

UW Sophomore Kyle Brodsky is taking Spanish 101 this semester and said the LSS digital learning lab provides a spectrum of instruction textbooks do not offer.

"Basically, it's really easy to use and you don't need flash cards or anything because you can just look at it online," he said. "I think it's definitely more useful than just reading it from a book."

Brodsky added being able to hear Spanish dialogue via the digital learning lab, for him, is critical to learning the language.

"You get to hear the pronunciation and how to say the words," he said. "It's good to actually be able to hear it."

As UW and LSS continue to bring technology into the classroom ahead of the curve, Gilgen said the university still must weigh tech savvy and dollar support.

"We can't afford to get too far ahead of the curve because if it doesn't pan out, we're out of money," he said. "Anyone who says using technology saves money is dreaming, what is does is help people learn better."