Teachers College's for Educational Techology? 31
gandrews asks: "I'm looking into advanced degrees in education with a focus on computers. Problem is, a lot of the departments I've found look like they're stuck in the early nineties -- they're still hung up on the possibilities of html and BBSes, and aren't paying attention to organic ways kids are already using chat and email, or how kids become autodidacts ? using computers. It doesn't improve my opinion any that so many of these university websites are broken. Does anyone know if up-to-date dialog on technology and education even exists in academia, and if so, where is it?"
It can't be... (Score:1)
Re:It can't be... (Score:1)
cash cow (Score:2)
If those schools are able to provide even those facilities, and they're reliable enough that a teacher can really depend on them for instruction, then they're already one up on my school. My school [fullcoll.edu] runs Windows on their servers, and can't even keep things running well enough to let students log in and websurf.
Basically most schools seem to think online courses are a cash cow, which is stupid, because they haven't though about all the computing resources that are required.
autodidacts (Score:1)
To wit, the frequent demonstrations of bad spelling and grammar right here on slashdot. If you find any TEACHERS' COLLEGES let us know.
Save The Children: Homeschool
grate (Score:2)
ategray (Score:1)
No surprise. (Score:2)
schools educate, they don't train (Score:2, Insightful)
I wanted to learn about networks, computers, and linux. I got a huge textbook and a course in algorithms and basic C++ programming. I was outraged that all this revolutionary technological change was happening (1998) and my University was "stuck in the past." I wanted to learn about new things, and the school just wanted to teach me to think.
I took action. I visited the head of the CS department, the head of the School of Arts and Sciences, I wrote the President (of the school) and I spoke with a state Regent. I learned that schools are institutions designed to react slowly to the changing external environment. The red tape to add or change a program is monumental. This is good.
I withdrew and began teaching myself what I wanted to learn. I got what I wanted. I may not have gotten what I needed. I missed the chance to be forced to struggle with the difficulties of programming. I missed the chance to be taught how to think better.
Years later I know enough about linux and open source software to enable small businesses to compete in a proprietary world. I know enough about networking to maintain routers and an extensive wan. I know enough about computers to build really sweet and thrifty boxes. I know very little about programming: the heart and soul of the computer world. This is what the CS dept. wanted to teach me. I am weaker.
My moral: don't judge a school on what it doesn't teach. Appreciate the methods used to teach you how to think. Visit and speak with faculty. Understand what their vision is for their department. You may find people endeavoring to teach you what you want to know while couching it in more classic studies. If the website for the school is broken, use this as an opportunity to make a difference. They clearly need you.
Universities offer community outreach classes that don't require Regent's approval for credit. These classes are much more current. Try them out in your spare time. In your main time, enroll and realize that a school is only as strong as its students. You will make a difference if you put yourself in charge.
Re:schools educate, they don't train (Score:2)
Schools just need better tools for teachers, I dont think average teachers can teach a class of 30 kids with only a chalk board.
Hope you like eating Ramen (Score:2, Interesting)
Teaching Computer Science (Score:1)
Oh, by the way, he's aged a little bit since that picture on his web page, so his beard is a little longer, his hair a little grayer, and he has a racing-stripe in the middle of his beard.
A suggestion (Score:2)
Hard to find tech-enlightenment in teaching (Score:1)
The lack of understanding of current technologies among teachers/administrators is exemplified in the low wages, budget, and status of school IT departments (where they even exist) across the country. If school systems and the universites that train their staff knew what a danger such conditions posed in the form of internal and external cracking, exposure to "non-educational"
I live in Western New York - probably one of the better areas in the country for teacher training. We have several teaching colleges nearby - Fredonia State, Buffalo State, Daemon, UB - and most have little teacher training on the proper application of technology. UB does have a pretty decent campus network, but I'm not sure that translates into good computer training for the teachers that the university produces.
Perhaps the best discussion of technology and education I've read is Clifford Stoll's 'High Tech Heretic'. It is certainly worth a read for insight into the current state of computing in academia.
Here... (Score:1)
One Good Program... (Score:2, Informative)
Kids already know it, teachers need to catch up (Score:1)
The view from 30,000 feet... (Score:1)
One of my supervisors (god I have like 5) likes to talk about how he can see the "view from 30,000 feet" or somesuch, and that I shouldn't ask questions like the one posted here, because I can't see the whole picture.
Well, buddy, I can see the whole picture, and it is grim. Teachers and the technology staff that support them are woefully undertrained and underfunded. The plain truth is that there is very little in the way of current training for educators when it comes to technology. In the backwater where I serve as lead web whipping boy, the state instituted (by legislative proclamation) that all (did you read that, all, all as in the coaches and the little old ladies doing Home-Ec) teachers must be proficient in the use of technology by either this year or next...
Except that there is a problem..
The legislature neglected to require a minimum standard of proficiency, and also neglected to fund this requirement (that's right, no new money to train teachers to meet this unknown requirement).
Also, each school district can determine on their own what the requirement is, and only has to supply a one page notification on their level of compliance...
In other words, they paid it lip-service. There are a lot of other areas where they have done a good job on enabling the schools with technology, like connecting every school to the internet, and making sure we have a god-awful number of computers in each school, but on this one, they dropped the ball.
In short, what you are looking for, past powerpoint classes and "How to use frontpage and excel to post grades to the web!", doesn't exist.
(obligatory blurb about how when I post anonymously, it always gets modded up, and vice-versa when posted non-anon.)
Institute of Learning and Research Technology (Score:2, Informative)
Ed Tech (Score:1)
My personal experience echoes what others have said - you'd think that Ed. Tech programs would be paragons of technical literacy themselves, but alas. (My alma mater UW [washington.edu] is a case in point.)
For my masters' degree, I chose a long-running distance program at GWU [gwu.edu]; sort of putting my money where my mouth is, so to speak. I'm looking forward to starting next week, and hope the dialogs are up-to-date and up to my expectations. Other programs I considered were Pepperdine [pepperdine.edu], MU [missouri.edu], and Boise State [boisestate.edu]
Another resource to check out of course is ISTE [iste.org], and I'm sure there are others like it.
go figure -- nobody answered the question... (Score:2, Informative)
Anyway, I can tell you from first hand experience that yes, what you have noticed is generally true. I went to the Harvard Grad. School of Ed. for the same kind of program. YMMV, but there was not much thought to newer technologies, and it was still very much mired in bulletin boards and such.
However, it focused more on core educational concepts, so you were generally free to apply those to whatever technologies you deemed fit. It was pretty free-form, so if you wanted to design your own independent research on the technology of your choice, go for it. Just don't expect anyone there to know squat about the tech. you choose.
You've really got to decide what you want to get out of the program: a foundation in educational theory with some intro on how to apply it to technology; an introduction to yesterday's educational technologies (perhaps formerly known as intructional technology); using technology in the classroom; etc.. All of these are available somewhere, but probably no single program offers everything.
Start with the bigger Graduate Schools in Education (Columbia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Harvard, come to mind), look at the faculty, the courses, and their research, and then broaden or narrow your search accordingly, but also look at related disciplines (media & communications, psych., etc..)-- the MIT Media Lab does some crazy stuff, for example. (and you can sometimes cross register from HGSE)
Talk to current students & alumni -- see what they're doing in school as well as where their careers went afterwards. Do these paths mirror where you see yourself?
Also, using the current web sites as a divining rod is not always the best practice. Seems like a good idea at first, but these sites often get left to the students to fix up, and who wants to bother with that when they're neck-deep in course work?
Good luck -- and watch those apostrophes.
Master of Education in Educational Technology (Score:1)
http://www.tamu.edu/ode/disted/
There's also a Master Technology Teacher certification in the works for this Fall.
http://cecoe.tamu.edu/
Smart board and the internet (Score:2)