EDUC615G-02+Integrating+Technology+with+Instruction

** Integrating Technology into Instruction ** ** Fall-Spring 2011-2012 **
 * EDUC 615G-02: **

Ruth-Ellen Verock-O’Loughlin with Special Guest, Robert Maloy

Phone: (978) 660-0145 Email: ruth-ellen@educ.umass.edu Office Hours: By Appointment

The transforming power of information and communication technologies makes it possible to rethink the way technology is used in K-12 schools. Learning how to use computer hardware and software (often called “Educational Technology” or “Ed Tech”) is only a beginning step in this process. Teachers and students need an information learning mindset where they move beyond being passive users to becoming active designers, creators and assessors of technology. Moving from “Ed Tech” to “Information Learning” means teachers prepare, deliver, and assess lessons differently while students think critically and creatively about the learning they do and the technologies they use.

This year-long course is designed for TEACH Bridges to the Future graduate students. The course emphasizes the use of best practice pedagogies, integration of new and emerging technologies, and the incorporation of community service learning projects as part of the design and implementation of digital technologies. Many of these new technologies are Web 2.0 tools. Web 2.0 is a term denoting how the Internet is evolving into a more open medium capable of promoting interaction and collaboration among teachers and students (Maloy et al. 2010).

An overarching goal of this course is to provide preservice teachers with an understanding of the technology standards and expectations for their classroom use. You will be asked to become familiar with these standards in light of the questions and challenges that you face in your classrooms, schools, and districts.
 * Course Rationale and Philosophy **

Your work in this course will revolve around three strands, all of which will unfold over the course of your immersion year as a teacher in a school.
 * Theoretical Framework Supporting Action Research **


 * // “Professionalization” //** asks you to begin building your digital presence and identity as a technology-using educator. A digital presence is how teachers present their skills, competencies, and accomplishments in online formats. It includes your digital teaching portfolio, the different ways you integrate technology into teaching, and how will you contribute to various educational communities.
 * Building a Digital Teaching Presence Explained 30% **


 * How do I know If I am building my Digital Teaching Presence? **

" **// Exploration Lab" //** invites you to explore your knowledge and use of educational technologies in the context of your current school placement. While no one tool serves each and every school population, it is important to discover how various tools may enrich or extend the curriculum; moving beyond the “pros” and “cons” of the tool itself to the enduring understandings and conceptual ideas that the tool represents. As you build your knowledge of digital technologies, you will identify an existing challenge within your school setting and then create a plan for exploring how that challenge may be resolved by using a Web 2.0 tool. For example, you may recall a student who finds her homework difficult or is unable to organize her course schedule; or perhaps you are considering how to help a fellow teacher design a course website. The end goal is to both consider and test-drive the various technological tools that may meet individual or institutional challenges though a semester long, participatory inquiry model. ** Exploration Labs 25% ** Credit for Full Participation in Class "Exploration Lab" includes: Class attendance, exploring the technology tool as a cohort, testing the tool within your own teaching, and debriefing the tool in Educ 615 G course meetings.


 * // Transformation” //** is grounded in both the goals set for yourself as a technology-using educator and as a teacher committed to creating learning success for all students. You will conduct a project using an inquiry approach about how technology can transform learning for students. Inquiry learning engages individuals in self-reflective study as a way to challenge, improve, and revise teaching practices.

Rooted in your professional use and interests in technology tools for teaching 21 Century Students, you will focus on a type of media, software, or instructional tool that has lead to a professional transformation this year. Your Transformation Report will include your experiences with new technology tool (e.g., virtual reality), a new piece of software you have discovered (delicious), or a new use of a technology you are already familiar with (e.g., how to arrange a classroom setting for learning using an interactive white board.) Your Transformation Report will consist of two parts.
 * Transformation Report 20% **

Research Questions

** 21st Century Learning Standards ** ** The United States Department of Education Office of Educational Technology (OET) ** set a series of broad goals for the use of technology in K-12 education and released the //National Education Technology Plan// in 2005. According to the OET, this plan “provides a summary of the challenges in our schools, the importance of technology, current student attitudes regarding technology, and recommendations for meeting the challenges of No Child Left Behind…” (2006). The plan is available online at: []. In addition to the goals outlined by the United States Department of Education, the **International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE)** has developed the National Educational Technology Standards (NETS) for teachers and students ( [|http://cnets.iste.org] ). ISTE collaborated with stakeholders throughout the PK-12 education community to devise a set of national standards for the use of technologies in schools. In 2077, ISTE released a revised set of standards and outlined "...what students should know and be able to do and learn effectively and live in an increasingly digital world..." (ISTE NETS 2007). The ISTE& NETS Standards are organized into six categories. These categories outline the essential technology concepts that teachers and children should master. All of the assignments for this course are tied to these technology standards.

** The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) ** and **the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council (MTLC)** worked with a group of educators and business partners to revise our instructional technology standards. These standards incorporate the ISTE NETS and the Partnership for 21st Century Skills into three broad standards, which are broken down by grade level. The standards were approved by the Massachusetts Board of Education on April 29, 2008. See: []

** Conceptual Framework ** This course aligns with the School of Education’s Conceptual Framework and commitment to: ** Collaboration ** -- Educators recognize the imperative of collaboration - that we cannot achieve our vision for student learning as independent actors working in isolation. Educators exhibit attitudes, dispositions, and behaviors consistent with a collaborative approach to professional practice, as opposed to an individualistic or competitive approach to professional practice. ** Reflective Practice ** -- Educators recognize the imperative of reflective practice – that to transform the status quo //we must be willing to consistently examine and transform assumptions about professional practice//. Educators exhibit attitudes, dispositions, and behaviors consistent with a reflective approach to professional practice that allows them to adapt practices based on considered reflection. ** Multiple Ways of Knowing ** -- Educators recognize the imperative of multiple ways of knowing – that to create communities of practice, we must respect the perspectives of different stakeholders. In a spirit of inquiry, educators reflect on and challenge their own perspectives and beliefs and maintain a professional awareness of the influences that their perspectives may have in educational settings. ** Access, Equity and Fairness ** -- Educators recognize the imperative of access, equity, and fairness – that we cannot achieve our vision of access to and success in education for all students //without knowledge of and attention to the student’s social, cultural, developmental, and personal context//. Educators exhibit attitudes, dispositions, and behaviors consistent with promoting equity that allow them to adopt practices that create and advance equitable conditions in which all students can learn. ** Evidence-Based Practice ** -- Educators recognize the imperative of evidence-based practices that promote student engagement, achievement and performance. In so doing the candidate be able to: 1) gather and/or examine multiple sources of evidence, 2) determine the credibility, reliability and validity of the evidence, 3) synthesize and draw conclusions from evidence, and 4) use the evidence to modify professional practices that result in increased PK12 student learning outcomes.

** Grading Policy -- ** Students must complete all of the course requirements in a timely manner. Because of the intensity of the STEP //Bridges to the Future// program, students may need to request extensions for assignments. These extensions will be granted at the discretion of the course instructor. Students who approach or fail to meet expectations set out in the course assignment rubrics will be asked to redo and resubmit the assignment. When appropriate, rubrics will be given to students along with assignment specifics.

Students will be graded based on the following: **Building a Digital Teaching Presence Assignment:** **30% (Rubric and Product)** **Exploration Assignment: 25% (Detailed Description of Your Presence-2 pages)** **Transformation Report: 20% (Research Questions Answered-All 5)** <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial; font-size: 17.3333px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">**Participation: 25% (Sandboxing)** =Read About Accommodations in EDUC615-G= =Read About Academic Honesty in EDUC615-G=

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