Overview
The UA COE:
The University of Alabama (UA) College of Education (COE) is committed to curriculum and faculty development and encourages best practices through a variety of opportunities and support. As a college, we consistently look for new approaches to integrate technology for our pre-service teachers and at clinical sites. The COE graduates approximately 200 undergraduate teachers a year. As we continually strive for innovative ways to prepare our teachers for tomorrow, we also collaborate with other education professionals through organizations and as members of such initiatives as the previous Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers to Use Technology (PT3)grants.
UA's Project I.T. Goal:
The Integrating Technology Project at the University of Alabama focuses on innovative and traditional best practices of infusing technology in its teacher education preparation programs. The overall goal of Project I.T. is to enable pre-service teachers to fully utilize instructional technologies and to prepare them for classroom best practices to enhance teaching and learning. The NETS standards for students and teachers form the framework of Project I.T.
The UA COE is focusing on secondary education methods courses in an effort to:
- Ensure that the ISTE Foundations Standards (See NETS for students and teachers) are implemented
- Ensure that methods (and other) courses integrate I.T. throughout the teacher education curriculum
- Ensure that field experiences for teacher education majors, particularly student teachers, have opportunities for I.T. applications
- Professional development for faculty role models
- Establish web sites to disseminate all aspects of the project
To achieve these goals, the following objectives are addressed:
- Increased awareness of faculty and project personnel of ISTE - NETS standards and various technology integration best practices
- Technology infusion in teacher preparation courses
- Each faculty member will work closely with Secondary Education Chair to ensure continued technology integration in methods courses. Each Methods course will be restructured and redesigned to achieve technology infusion and to integrate the NETS standards
- Continued ongoing development of Master Technology Teachers
- Technology training seminars for all instructors and graduate assistants of targeted Project IT courses
