The Economics Department was awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation in 1989 to put together a PC lab for the students. The purpose was to assist students to understand basic economic concepts and relationships; develop their modeling skills; and retrieve, evaluate, and use current and historical economic data in their courses. The lab has been extremely successful in achieving the first two goals but less so in the third. In addition, it has done little in teaching students to present the results of their investigations in an interesting, coherent, and professional manner. New hardware and software makes achievement of all four goals much easier. In order to prepare students for graduate school and employment, the department is implementing a 30-station computer lab that runs the current software. The Windows 95 current version of Quattro Pro makes mastery of spreadsheets easier, freeing students to explore the meaning of economic models more quickly and in more depth. Access to the Internet, which the current equipment cannot provide in a practical manner, enables students to retrieve data quickly and easily from many different sources, making their use of this data much more practical. Power Point helps students to present their arguments easily and persuasively. This is particularly important in the Economics in the Classroom course, a course for future teachers. Using current hardware and software, the project can build upon its success in the past and provide the students with skills that it has previously been unable to provide. The Economics Department has demonstrated its ability to use the latest technology to prepare students for life after college and continues to do so.
