Learn about the Ball State University Teaching and Technology Summit and why its organizers look forward to it every year.

In 2022, the Teaching Innovation Team launched the annual Teaching and Technology Summit, and now, four years later, we prepare to gather virtually once again with peers and colleagues to discuss teaching, technology, and the exciting ways they intersect.  

(By the way, this is your reminder to register for the 2026 Teaching and Technology Summit on March 19 and 20, if you have not already done so!) 

As a team member, I’ve helped organize this event since its second year, and it remains one of the highlights of our calendar. However, much of what we love about the event and its subject matter doesn’t always reach the audience for whom it is organized. So, I wanted to take the opportunity to ask my colleagues some questions to help characterize who we are and why we’re so passionate about these two days in March. 

Teaching and Technology Summit Origins 

Cheri Madewell, director of instructional consultation and Summit co-founder, reflects on the Summit’s origins. The Summit was originally envisioned as an opportunity for faculty to share how they were using technology in their teaching practices, emphasizing the messy, reflective component of experimenting and learning.  

Another key influence on the Summit’s inception was making it accessible to faculty, being virtual and free. Additionally, the second year broke the summit into two separate days, allowing “faculty who teach on Thursdays to attend Friday, and vice versa.” This objective to reduce barriers extended to the Summit’s structure as well, with presentations lasting 5, 10, 15, and 20 minutes to “lower barriers for submission and to keep a fast, engaged momentum throughout the Summit.” 

2026 and the Focus on AI 

Our Summit is about teaching and technology, and a conversation about these things can’t be had in 2026 without acknowledging the AI elephant in the room. This year’s Summit has a particular focus on AI, so I wanted to know from our team why this focus was important. 

Instructional Consultant Mac Romeo Clark highlights the innovative nature of AI, emphasizing that this is an opportunity for learning, despite the hesitation some of us may feel.  “While many of us are (rightfully) hesitant about AI, it’s important that we stay informed about the latest developments in higher education.” 

This sentiment was echoed by Dr. Oksana Komarenko, another instructional consultant, who pointed out that AI is here now—whether we want it to be or not. She went on to underline the educational value of the Summit in this regard, elaborating that “This Summit is important because it frames AI as something to be examined critically and thoughtfully, rather than blindly adopting or completely ignoring.”

“This Summit is important because it frames AI as something to be examined critically and thoughtfully, rather than blindly adopting or completely avoiding.”  

What kinds of AI questions and challenges are faculty currently navigating, and how can this Summit support them? Our team highlighted three areas where faculty have questions:  

  • How can AI be effectively leveraged in teaching practices? 
  • How can AI support the administrative tasks of teaching to free up focus for the subject matter tasks of teaching? 
  • What are the ethical and academic integrity issues surrounding AI, and how can we communicate these issues to our learners? 

Presentations this year speak to all three of these questions, and Oksana added that the Summit “supports faculty by offering concrete examples, shared language, and reassurance that these questions are normal and that thoughtful, pedagogically sound approaches already exist.” 

In addition to these AI-specific questions, Mac added a challenge she has heard about from faculty that is definitely related to the use of these digital tools: How do we teach “when our attention spans are at an all-time low”? To help address that question, Mac is looking forward to Dr. Boreum Kim’s presentation on gamifying learning “to see if she has any recommendations to combat cognitive fatigue, as attention spans are still a problem I’m still struggling with.” 

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“Technology” isn’t Just AI 

AI might be the elephant in the room in our conversations about teaching and technology, but it isn’t the only thing in the room. I wanted to close out this conversation with a question to help characterize each organizing member as one of the people curating this two-day event: What does “technology” mean to you? What kinds of technology in the teaching past, present, or future excite you? 

Mac identifies technology in the classroom in a traditional sense: “any digital tool that assists teaching and learning.” She went on to add that what excites her about technology is its ever-evolving state of being, explaining that “While this can be scary—because this means we will always be behind, in a way—it’s more compelling to know that technology will always be advancing.” Keeping up with the latest technology helps us understand and use new tools in the classroom. 

Oksana focuses on technology’s ability to streamline, defining it as “any tool that helps remove friction from teaching and learning.” The thing that excites her about this is that technology “supports clarity, access, and human connection rather than replacing it,” adding that “When technology helps teach in ways that feel more sustainable and aligned with values, that’s when it is doing its job well.”

“When technology helps teach in ways that feel more sustainable and aligned with values, that’s when it is doing its job well.” 

Instructional Consultant Carlos Lopez-Mercado took a more philosophical approach to this question, explaining that:  

“Technology, to me, is basically humanity’s long-running group project called ‘let’s make life slightly less impossible.’ We like to think technology is shiny, digital, and comes with a subscription fee. But fire was technology, the wheel, the first brave soul who said, ‘What if we wrote things down so we don’t have to keep remembering everything?’ OG Tech pioneers! “ 

He went on to summarize this succinctly as “Technology isn’t really about ‘newness’; it’s about amplification: a stick becomes a lever, a chalkboard becomes a smartboard, a lecture becomes a video someone watches at 1.5x speed while eating cereal.”

Conclusion  

The Teaching and Technology Summit is an event our team looks forward to all year long. Every year, the Summit brings together colleagues across disciplines and academic roles to share, explore, and innovate at the intersection of teaching and technology, and every year, tit continues to grow and evolve. This year, we’ve partnered with Ball State University Libraries, which will open Day Two of the Summit with an AI literacy framework presentation. 

As a team centered on supporting faculty with teaching and teaching technology, this event allows us to bring that passion to our community and facilitate conversations about it, which is a perfect expression of why we do what we do.  

Register today for the 2026 Teaching and Technology Summit on March 19 and 20 and share in the comments what you’re looking forward to! 

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  • John Carter joined the Division of Online and Strategic Learning in August 2022. With a background in composition and creative writing pedagogy, he has a particular enthusiasm for the role of communication in pedagogical processes, whether that be oral communication via class discussions, written communication via course documents, or visual/electronic communication via document design and instructional technologies. His graduate work focused on poetry, the environment, and sustainable agriculture, and, because of that, he has a keen interest in and awareness of the value of interdisciplinary work. When he isn’t thinking or talking about pedagogy, he can be found at the edge of a cornfield, writing about this strange, in-between region that is the Midwest.

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  • Cheri Madewell

    Cheri is the director of instructional consultation on the Teaching Innovation Team. Prior to joining the Division of Online and Strategic Learning, she was a faculty member for the Ball State Women’s and Gender Studies Program. Cheri’s background is in instructional design and technologies and leading international gender and LGBTQ grant projects.

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  • Mac Clark, Division of Online and Strategic Learning

    Mac Clark joined the Division of Online and Strategic Learning in July 2024. She is interested in finding the places where interpersonal and instructional communication meet—a task leading her to research identity, inclusive pedagogy, and accessible course design. Her most formative experiences happen in the classroom, as teaching in the Communication Studies department reminds her that practice is just as important as theory. She remains a lifelong learner, with her latest ventures being HTML and CSS code.

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  • Oksana Komarenko

    Oksana Komarenko, DA (she/her), is an Instructional Consultant and Quality Matters Coordinator in Ball State University’s Division of Online and Strategic Learning, but her path to instructional design began long before Canvas dashboards and course maps. Trained as a classical singer and educator, Oksana spent years performing on international stages, teaching students from all over the world, and studying how people learn and thrive under pressure.

    That journey sparked a question that continues to guide her work today: How can structured rituals, clear design, and supportive environments help learners feel confident, focused, and emotionally grounded? Oksana pursued that question through her doctoral research on pre-performance rituals and emotional regulation. Her findings, now published in Psychology of Music and the International Journal of Music Education, offer one of the first research-driven frameworks for understanding how routines and intentional practices reduce anxiety and enhance resilience in learning environments. Her work has been supported by SEMPRE and the Indiana Arts Commission and shared at conferences across the world.

    In DOSL, she brings this blend of artistry, research, and instructional design to her collaborations with faculty—helping them create courses that are structurally clear, mentally supportive, and rooted in student success. Known for her innovative problem-solving and her talent for translating complex standards into actionable practices, she supports faculty through Quality Matters reviews, course design partnerships, and strategic teaching consultations.

    Beyond her work with faculty, Oksana is an award-winning performer who has sung leading operatic roles in Europe and the United States and appeared at venues such as the Dubai Jazz Festival and the Ukrainian Embassy in the UAE. Her teaching philosophy reflects her artistic life: holistic, emotionally aware, culturally responsive, and grounded in the belief that education—like music—builds community and empowers human connection.

    Whether on stage or in the classroom, Oksana is driven by the same mission: to help people learn, express themselves authentically, and succeed with confidence.

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  • Carlos Lopez Mercado joined the Division of Online and Strategic Learning in October 2023. Carlos has an extensive background in communication, including his time as a graduate assistant where he loved sharing his knowledge and enthusiasm with others. Carlos is well-versed in media-related competencies, such as web design, digital marketing, training and development, and media management.

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