Overview

T4T (Technology for Teachers) is a two-hour per week face-to-face class at the University of Central Oklahoma's College of Professional Studies, and is required for all pre-service teacher education majors in the College of Education. Prior to Spring 2010, this course had primarily focused on client-side productivity applications (MS Office) using Intel Teach Program curriculum. For Spring 2010 this course has been redesigned, focusing on a variety of cloud-based, interactive learning technologies and other free educational technology tools. While most higher education courses are traditionally designed with the majority of course content and student-created work HIDDEN behind a walled garden / password-protected learning management system, this redesigned T4T course has been created with an ethic of open sharing. To the greatest degree possible (with the exception of student grades and other confidential information) T4T curriculum and student work is available on the open/public web. PLEASE NOTE THESE MATERIALS ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE.

These resources are licensed by Wesley Fryer and Karen Montgomery. Utilized content in this course may be licensed differently. In those cases links to separate licenses are provided.

Course Goals

Please refer to the course syllabus for a complete listing of educational standards to which course activities are aligned. The following goals summarize key course objectives:

    1. Empower students to thoughtfully and responsibly publish a variety of multimedia content online.

    2. Introduce students to a variety of digital platforms for content creation, communication, and collaboration.

    3. Introduce students to a variety of practical examples of digitally interactive lessons and student products.

    4. Prepare students to effectively design and facilitate learning in a 1 to 1 classroom learning environment.

    5. Inspire and empower students to build a personal learning network and engage in self-directed / self-initiated online learning.

    6. Inspire students to craft a positive, professional, online digital footprint.

  1. Have fun and feel comfortable using technology in teaching/learning situations.

Contacting Your Instructor

Students are prohibited from using email to contact the course instructor. Using email to contact the instructor once the course has begun will result in an incremental reduction in the student's course participation grade.

Before contacting the instructor with a question relating to the course or course content, students MUST first visit and search the Course FAQ for Students blog. During the course of the semester, common questions about the course and assignments will be posted to this blog for reference.

Students are encouraged to contact the instructor synchronously (LIVE) during weekly virtual office hours, listed in WebCT. Contact can be made during theses times by either:

  1. Skype (userid: wfryer)

  2. Facebook chat

  3. WebCT Chat

To make asynchronous, electronic contact with the instructor, students MUST use the university-provided WebCT course mail feature.

In case of emergency, students can contact the instructor by phone.

Course Tools and Resources for Students

Weekly Expectations Prior to Class

Two hours of study and work prior to each face-to-face class session are expected for each enrolled student. These activities should be completed prior to each week's class:

    1. Following the provided rubric, students will post at least 1 constructive comment to a K-12 classroom blog.

    2. Watch at least ONE of the assigned educational videos for the week.

    3. Following the provided rubric, post a reflection to the student's Course Learning Blog based on the educational video(s) watched for the week.

Elective Mini-Projects

During the course of the semester, students will complete elective mini-projects following provided rubrics. The following websites and software programs can be used for these projects:

  1. Glogster

  2. Scratch

  3. VoiceThread

  4. Google Earth

  5. Google Maps

  6. Google SketchUp

  7. Prezi

    1. Other tools with PRIOR approval of the instructor

Class Scribe Assignments

During the semester, each student will be assigned the responsibility for ONE WEEK to summarize the highlights and learning points from the week on the course Shared Learning Blog.

Curriki Screencast Assignment

During the semeseter, students will create a screencast (less than five minutes in length) highlighting and explaining a curricular topic of interest. This screencast will be submitted to Curriki and openly licensed, using a use license chosen by the author/student.

Student-Created Websites and Web Accounts

These websites are required for all students.

    1. Course Learning Blog (created with Blogger or EduBlogs)

    2. Professional ePortfolio (created with Google Sites or WikiSpaces)

    3. Google account (can be a GMail account or a Google account linked to another email address)

    4. Diigo social bookmarking account

    5. Twitter account

    6. Screenr account

    7. Ning account, and membership in K-12 Online, Classroom 2.0, and The Global Education Collaborative

    8. Curriki account

Digital Footprints, Privacy and Information Disclosure

While this course requires the creation and use of a variety of publicly available and accessible websites / web resources, students are NOT required to create accounts on these websites using his/her actual name. Aliases and screennames can be used, if desired, to create these accounts. By using an alias or screename unrelated to their actual name, students can maintain public anonymity on the websites and in the web content created to fulfill course requirements.

Before selecting, creating and using online accounts for this course, students are encouraged to consider the benefits of establishing and maintaining a professional digital footprint. By using a consistent username across multiple websites and web services, and consistently publishing high-quality, professional content online, students can craft their online digital footprint in ways that can open future doors of employment and work.

Students are encouraged, but not required, to create a consistent, professional digital footprint through the completion of these course requirements. For more thoughts along these lines, see:

Online Meetings

Following the course calendar, some weeks classes will meet ONLINE instead of FACE-TO-FACE. Student attendance and participation in these online meetings is expected, just as consistent face-to-face attendance in class is expected.

Quarterly Checkup Quizzes

Four times during the semester (quarterly) checkpoint grades will be earned by students. Using the course LMS (WebCT) students will be asked to complete a quiz and provide links to several completed, weekly assignments. 24 hours will be provided to submit these checkpoint links, which will be to weekly class assignments already completed prior to that week's class.

Every assignment completed for this course will NOT be evaluated and graded by the instructor. Checkpoint assignments will "spot check" successful student completion of assigned grades, and provide regular benchmarks for successful student participation in the course.

Grades

Please see the semester's course syllabus for more details about student grades. Full credit will NOT be given for late work. Grades will be determined by points earned in the following areas:

    1. Quarterly Checkup Quizzes: 40 points (10 points x 4 checkup)

    2. Elective Mini-Projects: 90 points (30 points x 3 mini-projects)

    3. Assigned Class Scribe Post: 10 points

    4. Course Learning Blog: 30 points

    5. Complete ePortfolio Website: 30 points (including Integrated Unit Plan)

    6. Screencast: 20 points

    7. Petcha Kutcha Presentation: 20 points

    8. Class Participation: 10 points

TOTAL: 250 points

Other Course Models

The following are links to similar courses which I have and am using as resources/models for this course:

I plan to take inspiration also from John Strange.

These are other online courses and online course resources which have influenced the development of this course as well: