Rationale

This course provides students with the opportunity to meet professionals in education, business, and technology to discuss how they provide services to the academic PreK-16 communities. Students will see presentations, demonstrations, and group discussions about several technology innovations in education. They will meet policy analysts, video producers, publishers, school district administrators, multimedia designers, and be introduced to new way of using technology. This course integrates instructional design theory with actual implementation issues that instructional designers and educators will be faced with as they complete their degrees in education and other areas at the university. It brings theory and practice together to allow students to design effective tools and environments that will be used in educational, academic, and business settings.

Course Goal

As students enter the field of teaching, instructional design and educational technology they need to be aware of the connections and elements that are involved in this area. This course provides the opportunity to understand the different aspects of these fields. It encourages students to look at instructional technology and teaching in a new and exciting way and to explore different opportunities and possibilities that exist.

Teachers must evaluate and understand these changes to create effective learning environments that utilize technology in effective ways to increase students learning and achievement. What pedagogical models are most motivating, inspiring, and effective? Do we need new design models for developing multimedia tools? What are industry, education, publishers, and business doing to meet these new educational challenges? These are some of the critical questions that are facing users and producers of multimedia learning tools. We will address these questions through discussions of currents scholarly and popular articles and books on multimedia and hypermedia, and critiques of cutting-edge projects presented by guest speakers.

 
Course Text
No major Text this semester

Suggested Journals:

• Journal of Technology and Teacher Education
• Review of Educational research
• Journal of Educational Computing Research
• American Educational Research Journal
• British Journal of Educational Technology
• Journal of educational Multimedia and Hypermedia
• Journal of Information Technology
• Teacher education

Course Evaluation (For each student)

Create a portfolio of work it should include the following:

Your grade for the seminar will be based on a portfolio of materials that you should prepare over the course of the semester. The portfolio should consist of summaries of each class session, the answer to at least one questions raised or the testing of at least one hypothesis suggested over the course of the semester, critical reviews of at least 5 journal articles on technology and education, and a project in that area. Each of the four generals requirements will count approximately equally toward your grade, but their presentation in the portfolio will also be a factor. Each of the five requirements are explained below:

Class Participation
Each student must ask questions and add to the group discussion during the class and on field trips. (10 points)

Summaries
For each class session you should prepare a brief written of the technologies, issues, and/or concepts discussed. The summary should begin with the date of the class and the speakers. It should include at least one question raised by the presentation and one hypothesis suggested by it. Class summaries should be completed individually. If you miss a class, you should arrange to copy one of your colleague’s summaries, but include (if possible) your own questions and hypotheses. (15 points)

Question Answered/Hypothesis Tested
At some point during the semester, you should arrange to explore one of the questions or hypotheses you have raised in greater depth. This could involve doing library research, or telephone interviews, or planning a site visit. You might also try something with students or do a survey of teachers in your school. If you and a colleague or a group of colleagues are interested in a similar topic, this requirement may be completed as a pair or group, but summaries of what you have discovered as a group should be included in each group member’s portfolio. (15 points)

Critical Reviews
Over the course of the semester, you should fine, read and write a critical summary of five journal articles concerned with some aspect of technology and education. The articles could be all on a single topic, but they don’t have to be. The articles might also be used as part of the answers sought above or the project completed below. Critical reviews should be done individually. (20 points)

Project
You will be required to complete or participate in a project that is in some way concerned with technology and education. Projects may be done in groups or individually and most be completed by the end of the course. You might, for example, do a literature review on some aspect of technology and education. You might design an educational application or a technology plan. You might create a database of information on, for example, useful websites for math educators, or elementary software, or science videos. You might do an on-line search. You might develop educational materials. You might work on one of our home pages or develop your own. You might do original research. Whatever you decide to do you should clear it with the course instructor first, and you should include documentation of your efforts in your portfolio. (40 points)