CEP 800: Learning in School and Other Settings

This course will acquaint students with several major psychological perspectives for appreciating learning that goes on in school and other settings. Students will also connect theories of learning to their own experiences as learners inside this course, in other courses, on the job and in other settings. By constantly examining the relationship between the ideas about learning introduced in this course and the learning situations in the students’ world outside of this course, students will find greater meaning and significance in both. We consider implications of these perspectives for practice, particularly the practice in your field.

CEP 822: Approaches to Educational Research

Alternative methods of educational research. Identifying researchable problems in education and developing a research proposal. Applications of descriptive and inferential statistics for analyzing and critiquing published studies.

CEP 807: Proseminar in Educational Technology

For the program’s required final evaluation, students prepare an online portfolio summarizing their work in the MAET program and present this work in a group setting. Portfolios and presentations will be evaluated by at least two MAET course instructors, including at least one MAET faculty. Work presented must demonstrate the student’s competence in using technology to support teaching and learning and for presenting work clearly and professionally.

CEP 807 was awarded an Honorable Mention in the 2013 MSU AT&T Award Competition in Instructional Technology.

CEP 810: Teaching for Understanding with Technology

As the first course in both the Educational Technology Certificate (ETC) and Master of Arts in Educational Technology (MAET) programs, CEP 810 introduces five foundational topics that are essential for advanced study:

(a) theories of learning and understanding,

(b) essential mindsets for teaching with technology,

(c ) professional learning networks,

(d) Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) and

(e) creative uses of technologies for learning.

Readings and assignments are designed to support the development of knowledge and technology integration skills so that, by the end of this course, students are better equipped to use a wider range of technologies in their work in thoughtful ways.

COURSE OBJECTIVES

By the end of this course, students will have

Learned:

• Foundational theories in the learning sciences, technology integration and digital culture, including, most notably, TPACK

• Key mindsets and dispositions that will enable students to embrace the complexities of advanced problem solving in a digital world

• To do something they have always wanted to do using only YouTube and Help Forums for support

• Policies and practices that enable fair use of copyrighted material in the classroom

• Strategies for integrating a range of technologies in ways that support student learning and professional practice

Explored:

• The affordances and constraints of range of technologies for teaching and learning

• The possibilities of participatory culture

• Their Personal Learning Network (PLN)

• Technologies to support workflow

Created:

• An essay that summarizes what they understand about learning and understanding

• A professional blog/portfolio space where their work is saved and therefore documented, but also showcased so that others can appreciate their skills, commitment to excellence and growth as a reflective practitioner

• A more extensive PLN using digital tools

• A lesson plan that engages students in advanced inquiry processes and problem-based learning on the web

• A single change in workflow supported by a new technology

• A TPACK video

• A video that documents what they have learned from YouTube and/or Help Forums

Shared:

• Their work openly on the web and with their PLN

• Responses to colleagues’ work in ways that support the development of an open, thoughtful and reflective community of educational professionals

 

CEP 811: Adapting Innovative Technologies in Education

In CEP 811, you will be immersed in repurposing the world around you to create experiences that are Novel, Effective and Whole (NEW). You will be building upon the work you did in CEP 810, digging deeper into the TPACK theory (Technology, Pedagogy and Content Knowledge), applying and playing with theories of learning, and continuing to grow your professional networks and professional presence. In CEP 811, we will experiment with what some have dubbed “maker culture.” We be repurpose the world around us and explore new (and old) ways of designing learning experiences that are rooted in creativity and purposeful design practices.

COURSE OBJECTIVES

In CEP 811 you will

Learn:

• How to repurpose the world around you, using existing technologies and creating new ones.
• About Maker Education, and theories of constructivism that inform this approach to teaching and learning.

Explore:

• A range of innovative technologies that can be adapted to contexts of teaching and learning (eg., Maker Kits, SketchUp, Tinker Cad, Evernote, Zoom, Google Hangout, Mozilla Hello, Piktochart)

Share:

• Your ideas and creations with global networks of makers and educators in formal and informal professional development contexts.

CEP 812: Applying Educational Technology to Issues of Practice

CEP 812 is the third and final course in the Educational Technology Certificate program sequence. Broadly conceived, this course focuses on the ways that we can use a range of technologies to address a range of teaching and education-related problems. Students explore properties of well-structured, ill-structure and wicked problems before reading about human social and cognitive dispositions that limit our ability to solve big problems smartly. In addition to working with a think tank of peers to examine a wicked, high-priority educational problem, students critically examine their “info diet,” collect data that will inform a deeper understanding of the culture of technology integration that surrounds them, explore ways to use technologies to support special learning needs and reflect on the ways they leverage technologies with passion and curiosity to support student learning.

COURSE OBJECTIVES

In CEP 812, you will

Learn:

• About well-structured, ill-structured and wicked problems

• From James Paul Gee about (a) why people struggle to solve big problems smartly and (b) how we can use digital technologies to address some of these limitations, especially in schools

• About the potential of participatory culture to bring about great and powerful change, but also the challenges we must consider as consumers of information on the Internet

• About a learning need of your choice, using library databases for research

Explore:

• A range of digital tools and their potential applications to problems of practice

• Solutions to a wicked problem with your Think Tank

• New ideas about problem solving

Create:

• A screencast

• A Voicethread with your Wicked Problem Think Tank

• Several blog posts that address a range of critical and reflective issues

• A survey

Share:

• All of your work with colleagues and to your PLN on your blog

• Thoughtful comments on colleagues’ work

 

CEP 813: Electronic Assessment for Teaching and Learning

This course introduces foundational theories of assessment. It focuses on critical examination of methods of assessment (e.g., portfolios, rubrics, surveys, tests, self-evaluations), and digital tools that allow educators to gather information, analyze it and make informed pedagogical choices. Students design assessments for learning, as learning and of learning, especially in digital contexts.

CEP 817: Learning Technology by Design

Learning Technology through Design is a course that investigates the process of design particularly as it applies to educational technology. The course is structured around multiple design activities and one (or two) large design projects. Topics covered include learning by design, human computer interaction, art and aesthetics of design, iterative design, design evaluation and collaboration in design.

CEP 820: Teaching Students Online

Examining ways in which educators can bring the world into their classrooms with technology to better meet the educational needs of students across the lifespan. The course focuses on ways in which teachers and students can broadcast their ideas and information to the outside world for purposes of collaboration and communication. The course includes discussions of various online learning management systems including their functions, strengths and weaknesses along with the exploration of various teaching methodologies and how they should be used in the online environment to ensure teaching and learning success.

CEP 820 was awarded an Honorable Mention in the 2012 MSU AT&T Award Competition in Instructional Technology. You can read more about the course and award here:

CEP 814: Computational Thinking for K12 Educators

This course focuses on applying computational thinking (CT) to domain-based contexts, with an emphasis on how to make CT transparent to K12 students. In this course, students will discuss CT with practitioners and will work to understand the wider impacts of computing. The course learning objectives are as following:

• Understand the main concepts/skills involved in CT

• Applying CT to disciplinary / domain-based contexts in K-12 classrooms

• Understanding impacts of computing

• Making CT “transparent” to K-12 students

CEP 824: Programming Concepts for K12 Educators

This course will use a wide array of digital programming tools to introduce the fundamental concepts of a programming, the basics of computing and computing systems, and connecting each of these ideas to instructional approaches for K-12 settings and subject areas. The course learning objectives are as following:

• Utilize digital programming tools (Scratch, Pencil Code, Python)

• Demonstrate understanding of core concepts shared between programming tools

• Understand pedagogy of CS misconceptions, scaffolding, basic programming concepts, inclusive computing culture, bridging visual programming tools to text-based programming languages, assessment

• Apply programming tools to solve problems in K-12 subject areas.

CEP 833: Creativity in K-12 Computing Education

This course focuses on the intersections between creativity and computing in cross-disciplinary K-12 contexts and subject areas. The course learning objectives are as following:

• Understand how creative artifacts can be used in K12 CT/CS contexts

• Understand ways to construct learning environments that support creativity (pedagogy)

• Understand ways to assess student performance in relation to creativity.

CEP 805: Learning Mathematics with Technology

The course explores the interaction of school mathematics content, technology that supports mathematics teaching and learning, and the cognitive and social processes of learning. It is designed to serve practicing teachers at all levels (elementary, middle school and high school) in their thinking about the interaction of technology and school content, particularly those who teach mathematics for at least part of their school day. No particular strength in mathematics or knowledge of specific technologies is required, only a willingness to explore and rethink standard assumptions about elementary mathematics and learning. The course is structured into eight units, five of which explore a specific content area within school mathematics and a specific technology that hold promise for learning in that particular content area. One end product will be a personalized online library of resources indexed to particular mathematics content and issues in teaching and learning.

CEP 810: Teaching for Understanding with Technology

As the first course in both the Educational Technology Certificate (ETC) and Master of Arts in Educational Technology (MAET) programs, CEP 810 introduces five foundational topics that are essential for advanced study:

(a) theories of learning and understanding,

(b) essential mindsets for teaching with technology,

(c ) professional learning networks,

(d) Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) and

(e) creative uses of technologies for learning.

Readings and assignments are designed to support the development of knowledge and technology integration skills so that, by the end of this course, students are better equipped to use a wider range of technologies in their work in thoughtful ways.

COURSE OBJECTIVES

By the end of this course, students will have

Learned:

• Foundational theories in the learning sciences, technology integration and digital culture, including, most notably, TPACK

• Key mindsets and dispositions that will enable students to embrace the complexities of advanced problem solving in a digital world

• To do something they have always wanted to do using only YouTube and Help Forums for support

• Policies and practices that enable fair use of copyrighted material in the classroom

• Strategies for integrating a range of technologies in ways that support student learning and professional practice

Explored:

• The affordances and constraints of range of technologies for teaching and learning

• The possibilities of participatory culture

• Their Personal Learning Network (PLN)

• Technologies to support workflow

Created:

• An essay that summarizes what they understand about learning and understanding

• A professional blog/portfolio space where their work is saved and therefore documented, but also showcased so that others can appreciate their skills, commitment to excellence and growth as a reflective practitioner

• A more extensive PLN using digital tools

• A lesson plan that engages students in advanced inquiry processes and problem-based learning on the web

• A single change in workflow supported by a new technology

• A TPACK video

• A video that documents what they have learned from YouTube and/or Help Forums

Shared:

• Their work openly on the web and with their PLN

• Responses to colleagues’ work in ways that support the development of an open, thoughtful and reflective community of educational professionals

CEP 811: Adapting Innovative Technologies in Education

In CEP 811, you will be immersed in repurposing the world around you to create experiences that are Novel, Effective and Whole (NEW.) You will be building upon the work you did in CEP 810, digging deeper into the TPACK theory (Technology, Pedagogy and Content Knowledge), applying and playing with theories of learning, and continuing to grow your professional networks and professional presence. In CEP 811, we will experiment with what some have dubbed “maker culture”. We be repurpose the world around us and explore new (and old) ways of designing learning experiences that are rooted in creativity and purposeful design practices.

COURSE OBJECTIVES

In CEP 811, you will

Learn:

• How to repurpose the world around you, using existing technologies and creating new ones.
• About Maker Education, and theories of constructivism that inform this approach to teaching and learning.

Explore:

• A range of innovative technologies that can be adapted to contexts of teaching and learning (eg., Maker Kits, SketchUp, Tinker Cad, Evernote, Zoom, Google Hangout, Mozilla Hello, Piktochart)

Share:

• Your ideas and creations with global networks of makers and educators in formal and informal professional development contexts.

CEP 812: Applying Educational Technology to Issues of Practice

CEP 812 is the third and final course in the Educational Technology Certificate Program sequence. Broadly conceived, this course focuses on the ways that we can use a range of technologies to address a range of teaching and education-related problems. Students explore properties of well-structured, ill-structured and wicked problems before reading about human social and cognitive dispositions that limit our ability to solve big problems smartly. In addition to working with a think tank of peers to examine a wicked, high-priority educational problem, students critically examine their “info diet,” collect data that will inform a deeper understanding of the culture of technology integration that surrounds them, explore ways to use technologies to support special learning needs, and reflect on the ways they leverage technologies with passion and curiosity to support student learning.

COURSE OBJECTIVES

In CEP 812, you will

Learn:

• About well-structured, ill-structured and wicked problems

• From James Paul Gee about (a) why people struggle to solve big problems smartly and (b) how we can use digital technologies to address some of these limitations, especially in schools

• About the potential of participatory culture to bring about great and powerful change, but also the challenges we must consider as consumers of information on the Internet

• About a learning need of your choice, using library databases for research

Explore:

• A range of digital tools and their potential applications to problems of practice

• Solutions to a wicked problem with your Think Tank

• New ideas about problem solving

Create:

• A screencast

• A Voicethread with your Wicked Problem Think Tank

• Several blog posts that address a range of critical and reflective issues

• A survey

Share

• All of your work with colleagues and to your PLN on your blog

• Thoughtful comments on colleagues’ work

CEP 813: Electronic Assessment for Teaching and Learning

This course introduces foundational theories of assessment. It focuses on critical examination of methods of assessment (e.g., portfolios, rubrics, surveys, tests, self-evaluations), and digital tools that allow educators to gather information, analyze it and make informed pedagogical choices. Students design assessments for learning, as learning and of learning, especially in digital contexts.

CEP 814: Computational Thinking for K-12 Educators

This course focuses on applying computational thinking (CT) to domain-based contexts, with an emphasis on how to make CT transparent to K12 students. In this course, students will discuss CT with practitioners and will work to understand the wider impacts of computing. The course learning objectives are as following:

• Understand the main concepts/skills involved in CT

• Applying CT to disciplinary / domain-based contexts in K-12 classrooms

• Understanding impacts of computing

• Making CT “transparent” to K-12 students

CEP 815: Technology and Leadership

New technologies not only have the potential of changing what and how students learn, but they can also alter the task of teaching in significant ways. In this course, we will examine the complex charge of being responsible for managing relationships between technology, teaching and learning. We will look at technology from multiple perspectives to assess its potential benefits and challenges to different audiences. Professional development strategies, project management, planning, evaluation, relationship building, along with the ethical and social implications of technology integration will be examined.

CEP 816: Technology, Teaching, and Learning Across the Curriculum

In this course, we will examine new ways of teaching with technology to improve learning. It is a digital age, and digital, random access media are in significant ways different from the instructional materials of traditional instruction. The new media are inherently malleable, freed from the bonds of going in a straight line and being organized into separate compartments. Our assumption in this course an assumption that we will put to the test in some of our discussions and exercises is that new media make possible new and important kinds of learning and teaching that were hard to achieve with traditional instructional approaches. We will endeavor to figure out how we might best adapt new technologies for a new kind of teaching practice. Also, there will be a place in the course for you to think about the kinds of teaching you’ve always wanted to do but couldn’t because of limitations of instructional material, and that you would most like to implement with the assistance of digital technology.

The time is propitious for such an effort. The open educational resources movement has picked up steam with great rapidity. We are approaching a point where virtually everything one needs to know as a learner (or teacher) is available on the Web, an increasingly large amount of it for free. Many people in the educational technology field are becoming convinced that this is the direction of the future just ahead, a future that in many ways we are already reaching. So the question isn’t whether teachers will need to operate in this open environment they will but rather how they can make the best use of this opportunity.

But openly available resources used “as is” will not help to move us forward that much. It could be argued that the really big step will be associated with an assumption of the central desirability of effective adaptation, rearrangement, reuse and repurposing of openly available resources in instruction. Some of the course will be devoted to explicating this assumption, but it will also be reflected in the shaping of the course, where we will practice what we preach.

Everything is changing in the educational technology world, and one cannot expect to find fully formed answers to how to teach with technology “out there” they aren’t there because they are in a constant, sometimes daily process of emerging. This is both a bad and a good thing. It is a bad thing for those who want pre-packaged solutions. But it is a good thing for those who want to assemble their own instructional packages to suit their own instructional philosophies and the needs of their students. The ingredients of this instructional assembly process are available on the Web; how they are put together has become a matter of individual choice, the power resting with you. We will share what we find on the Web; and we will share what we find out about “finding” (because we all need to understand better how to search and learn from the Web, under our own control, not the automatic control of Google lists or hyperlinks others develop). As important as finding things on the Web, though, is using the affordances of that knowledge source to produce searches that open up and deepen understanding, rather than closing in on the finding of an answer. We will address a lot of attention to that need (as well as covering some things that are by now fairly well established, as presented in the book that will be used in the course, Will Richardson’s “Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts.”)

So, in a sense, this course is about you, what you can now do for yourself that you never could have dreamed of doing even a few years ago.

Much of what we will do will be with an eye toward applications of technology for teaching/training to promote better, deeper learning. We will consider issues that are more theoretical and philosophical only insofar as they entail real implications for practice. We will talk some, perhaps, about software tools to support learning, but our emphasis will not be on software itself, but rather the learning activities that would employ available tools and the ones that will be arriving almost every day. The way to keep up is to know how to think with technology, not to be able to master this or that particular piece of (soon to be obsolete) software. One of our goals is to enable you to not feel that changes in technology will be placing you inside a version of the Myth of Sysyphus, where you are constantly needing to spend long hours learning new things. Our approach will not be driven by the power of the technology, but rather by the goals and needs of learning and teaching, with technology’ special affordances at their service. Developing new mindsets or habits of mind that permit the affordances of new media to achieve important learning goals will be central to the course.

CEP 817: Learning Technology by Design

Learning Technology through Design is a course that investigates the process of design particularly as it applies to educational technology. The course is structured around multiple design activities and one (or two) large design projects. Topics covered include learning by design, human computer interaction, art and aesthetics of design, iterative design, design evaluation, and collaboration in design.

CEP 818: Creativity in Teaching and Learning

Creativity is of increasing importance to educators both for their professional success and that of their students particularly given the complex, evolving knowledge ecology we are live in. In this online course we will explore a range of questions related to creativity. These include: What does it mean to be creative? Is creativity born or can it be developed/ learned/ nurtured? Does creativity reside in the individual or in the social (or organizational) context within which we live? What does the creative process look like? What is the relationship between creativity, play and humor? (In other words, do creative people have more fun?) How can we become more creative in teaching? How can technology help us become more creative teachers and learners? How can we integrate creativity in subject matter learning? How do we assess creativity? How can we develop creativity in others (particularly in learners)? What are the consequences of these ideas in an era dominated by NCLB?

CEP 820: Teaching Students Online

Examining ways in which educators can bring the world into their classrooms with technology to better meet the educational needs of students across the lifespan. The course focuses on ways in which teachers and students can broadcast their ideas and information to the outside world for purposes of collaboration and communication. The course includes discussions of various online learning management systems including their functions, strengths, and weaknesses along with the exploration of various teaching methodologies and how they should be used in the online environment to ensure teaching and learning success.

CEP 820 was awarded an Honorable Mention in the 2012 MSU AT&T Award Competition in Instructional Technology. You can read more about the course and award here:
http://attawards.msu.edu/winners/2012/cep-820

CEP 824: Programming Concepts for K12 Educators

TThis course will use a wide array of digital programming tools to introduce the fundamental concepts of a programming, the basics of computing and computing systems, and connecting each of these ideas to instructional approaches for K-12 settings and subject areas. The course learning objectives are as following:

• Utilize digital programming tools (Scratch, Pencil Code, Python)

• Demonstrate understanding of core concepts shared between programming tools

• Understand pedagogy of CS – misconceptions, scaffolding, basic programming concepts, inclusive computing culture, bridging visual programming tools to text-based programming languages, assessment

• Apply programming tools to solve problems in K-12 subject areas.

CEP 833: Creativity in K12 Computing Education

This course focuses on the intersections between creativity and computing in cross-disciplinary K12 contexts and subject areas. The course learning objectives are as following:

• Understand how creative artifacts can be used in K12 CT/CS contexts

• Understand ways to construct learning environments that support creativity (pedagogy)

• Understand ways to assess student performance in relation to creativity.