Teaching “Advanced Integration of Technology into the Curriculum”

I have the privilege to teach “Advanced Integration of Technology into the Curriculum” this summer at the Wayland Baptist University Lubbock campus, for 22 graduate and undergraduate students. So we finish up the class a little sooner, we are meeting on Friday nights and Saturday mornings for 6 weeks. It is going to be an intense month and a half, but a great experience I think! I have taught many different technology workshops, but this is the first time I have been able to teach an entire university course specifically about classroom technology integration. I am really thrilled to have this opportunity.

My course outline / syllabus for the class is available on www.wesleyfryer.com/integrate, and the homepage now includes links to all student blogs in the right sidebar at the top. We are using blogs as a primary communication medium, both between students and between students and myself.

One of the most exciting things about this course (maybe the best thing) is that we have been permitted to use two books by David Warlick as our primary texts. They are:

– Raw Materials for the Mind: A Teacher’s Guide to Digital Literacy (4th Edition, just released in 2005)
– Redefining Literacy for the 21st Century (2004)

David was the keynote speaker at our January 2004 South Plains Technology Integration Conference, and is absolutely top notch when it comes to educational technology issues and helping teachers both understand and learn to use the new tools of the 21st century. I am hoping that at some point during the term, we can arrange for a short iChat AV videoconference with David. We are using his “Redefining Literacy” book as the subject for our small group student tutorial sessions at the end of each class. The tutorial is something I heard about back in 1990 when I visited Oxford University in England, but actually experienced (in a modified version) during three of my doctoral classes at TTU with Professor Doug Simpson. My current version of the tutorial is something all of the students in my current class have not experienced, but hopefully will enjoy and benefit from.

It is amazing to see how quickly the Internet is becoming a platform for global idea publication. I have heard this phenomenon referred to as:
– The Read/Write Web
– “the web as platform”
– Web 2.0

The point is, no one needs programming knowledge or special tools to be an international content publisher. The potential for interactive writing and communication today, in June 2005, is unprecedented. What an exciting time to be a teacher and learner!

Two weblogs I would highly recommend on this topic would be:
– David Warlick’s blog: Exactly 2¢ Worth
– Richard MacManus’s blog: Read/Write Web (Richard is incidentally a Kiwi)

More of my blog recommendations are available on my Bloglines public feeds (http://bloglines.com/public/wfryer).

“The Web As Platform” is going to be the title of my next article for the TechEdge, which I plan to write soon. 🙂

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Teaching “Advanced Integration of Technology into the Curriculum”

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