Syllabus
Instructor Sara Dexter, Assistant Professor Department of Leadership, Foundations, and Policy, Curry School of Education, UVA. Office Hours: By appointment. Phone/ Voice mail:434-924-7131
Course Description and Objectives
Effectively integrating and implementing educational technology requires team leadership for catalyzing and implementing innovations to teachers’ instructional beliefs and practices, and the school’s culture and organization. This course will focus on what school leaders (including principals, technology coordinators, and teacher-leaders) can do to facilitate examination of their own and their school community’s beliefs about instruction and the role of technology, as well as critically analyze the school culture, structures, and policies needed to effectively utilize technology. The overall course goal is to develop an understanding of leadership skills in the area of technology integration and implementation as it relates to educational change.
The course objectives are for you to know and be able to:
- analyze the relationship of various educational technologies to teacher’s beliefs and practices and to local school culture, structures, and policies;
- evaluate the factors critical for successful implementation of educational technology;
- identify and deconstruct the representation of educational technology in a school setting;
- analyze and write up a case of technology leadership.
Required Books
Most assigned readings will be on the web, or in ToolKit.
Assignments
291 points possible: A’s range begins at 90%; B’s range begins at 80%; C’s range begins at 70%; D’s range begins at 60%
Specific requirements and a rubric for each assignment will be provided on separate assignment and task pages. All assignments are to be written with clarity and edited carefully for spelling and grammatical errors. They should have logical internal structure. Microsoft Word documents are preferred (.doc) or RTF (.rtf) documents. Use APA format for citing and listing references. Suggested writing and citation style resources: - American Psychological Association. (2001). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (5th ed.). Washington, DC: Author & see electronic reference formats recommended by the APA http://www.apa.org/journals/webref.html - Strunk, W., Jr., & White, E. B. (1979). Elements of style. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
Written Responses to Readings for Disussion Preparation and Participation (11 @9 pts)
This includes reading assigned chapters and articles and writing up summaries or reactions.
Tools Show and Tell (3 @10 pts each)<
Select an online data collection tool from the list, or find one on your own, and review its purpose and operation. Make a short entry and present to your group in 10 minutes or less about its functions, advantages, and limitations
ETIPS (3 Online Cases @8 pts each)
These online case exercises will provide us a common setting for applying principles of educational technology integration or implementation, and analyze the impact of the context on how it plays out. These ETIPS assignments require a short answer response to a case question.
Learning Logs (3 @ 6 points each)
These learning log entries will support your synthesizing the class readings, discussions, and activities, particularly as they apply to your future plans to lead efforts to integrate and implement technology. Report on what you take away as your major learnings about educational technology and its place in teaching and learning; what theories, research or tools we examine in class that you find most helpful, and think you'll use; and how your ideas about leadership for technology integration and implementation might be changing.
Case/paper (120 points total)
You will select an instance where technology planning and implementation is occurring and describe and analyze it. The case may concern work that is being carried out in your school or district or another place of interest to you. The case is broken into distinct sections that correspond to the institute's main topics. This case will serve as a vehicle for you to apply what we learn in class.
School and University Policies
Assistance for Disability in Learning:
UVA’s guide about accommodations that various University of Virginia departments provide to individuals with disabilities can be found at http://www.virginia.edu/vpsa/ada-std.html See also http://trc.virginia.edu/Resources/Academic_Support.htm
Honor Policy:
The honor code applies to all work submitted for this course. The honor code states: On my honor as a student, I have neither given nor received aid on this assignment.” The issue of “aid” sometimes becomes unclear when doing research. According to the University, plagiarism is presenting another person’s work as your own. Examples of plagiarism include copying another person’s paper, restating ideas from a book or article without citing the article as a source, or copying more than seven words from a book or article without quotation marks and a citation of the source of the quotation.
Religious Holidays:
UVA’s policy on religious holidays states “When a religious holiday falls during scheduled class time, faculty are expected not to place a student in jeopardy for observing a religious custom. For example, quizzes affecting the grading of a student's performance should be rescheduled or alternative times be offered.” Please let me know if a religious holiday you observe conflicts with class requirements.
Cellular Phones :
Cell phones should not be used or even turned on during class unless there is an emergency situation that warrants it.