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

Technology Ethical, Social, and Legal Issues and Policies is designed to help technology leaders gain an understanding of the considerations technological innovations introduce into educational systems. While not comprehensive, students will learn of frameworks, data collection tools, resources and research that will aid good decision making while considering current and future technologies.

This course will help participants

  • Ensure equity of access to technology resources that enable and empower all learners and educators
  • Identify, communicate, model, and enforce social, legal, and ethical practices to promote responsible use of technology
  • Promote and enforce privacy, security, and online safety related to the use of technology
  • Promote and enforce environmentally safe and healthy practices in the use of technology
  • Participate in the development of policies that clearly enforce copyright law and assign ownership of intellectual property developed with district resources

Required Materials

Order Legal Issues & Education Technology: A School Leader’s Guide, Second Edition. Most other assigned readings will be on the web.

Assignments

176 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%

Weekly Participation (5 @ 20 pts)

This includes writing up summaries or reactions and participating in online discussions and/or group activities.

Analysis Papers (2 @ 20 pts each)

Each of these papers will follow a similar format where you take ideas presented in the reading(s) for the week and synthesize them to describe and analyze the planning and funding approaches for educational technology in your school or division.

Application Paper (36 points)

In this document you will draw upon your analysis papers to make a tool that you could use to support a school's staff members in planning for and funding educational technology. This will include crafting elements that unite the materials in the analysis points into a framework; drawing upon the analysis and feedback on it to create a presentation to stakeholders; and adding a commentary section to the instructor that sums up your conclusions about encouraging stakeholder participation in planning and funding technology.

Specific requirements and a rubric for each assignment will be provided on 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.

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.