Instructional Psychology and Technology 286

Texts & Materials

Description

Instructional (sometimes called educational) technology is becoming an increasingly important part of K-12 education. New and emerging technologies are what your students will be using to learn and complete homework, and it will be what they will use to succeed as professionals in the workforce. It can also be how you enhance learning, improve motivation and engagement, increase accessibility, individualize instruction, and improve communication with parents and stakeholders. In this course, we will learn ideas and skills for integrating technology effectively into your teaching. Specifically, I hope that by the end of the semester, you will be able to:

1. Understand how technologies can enhance their teaching, professional work and communication, and personal professional development.
2. Design technology-enhanced lesson plans, activities, and resources.
3. Identify resources to assist them in learning how to integrate technologies in the future.
4. Be motivated and confident in their abilities to learn how to use new technologies in their teaching.
5. Understand how to more effectively teach the gospel utilizing emerging technologies.\

ISTE Technology Standards
My goals for this course and inspiration for the activities are based in part on the National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers from the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). These are the technology standards most often cited for teachers. A short description of the standards can be downloaded from ISTE. There are also technology standards for your students.

Course Policies
Course policies and assignments are subject to change as we move through the course because, like technologies, technology-enhanced instruction is constantly evolving! I will always give adequate notice of any changes to the policies or calendar.

Required Equipment
There is no textbook required for this course. Instead, you are required to have a flash key drive for backing up your work and a web camera if you are in the online course. Other equipment (i.e. cameras) are available in the TEC lab in the McKay building. For our reading assignments, you will be asked to read my blog and other material you find online every week and share ideas you learn about using technology in your subject area.

Prerequisites

The 276 course for your major (e.g. ScEd 276r for science education) is a PREREQUISITE for IP&T 286. In particular, the Technology Skills Assessment that you complete as part of 276 is a PREREQUISITE for our course. Here is the website for the TSA: http://education.byu.edu/technology/tsa.html

Additionally, I teach two sections of this course: an online section and a face-to-face (regular classroom) section. The online section has additional prerequisites. Because of the nature of the course, you must be able to:

• have regular access to high-speed Internet
• be able to teach yourself new technologies from tutorials
• be able to self-regulate your learning and stay on task by yourself.

Attendance Policy

You are expected to attend class each week. As described in the participation policy, "class" for the online students is a weekly voicethread.

Participation Policy

This class is heavily based on class discussion, particularly with other students who are in your same subject area so you can share ideas about how to apply the technologies you learn to your own teaching. Thus, part of your grade will be weekly participation both in "class" and in commenting on blog posts from your peers. "Class" for face-to-face students is simply coming to our regular meeting time and participating. "Class" for the online students will be a voicethread (kind of like a recorded Powerpoint with the opportunity for discussion about each of the slides), and for participation, online students will need to participate in the voicethread each week and comment on their peers' blogs.

Electronic Devices
As a courtesy to everyone, face-to-face students should turn off cell phones during class and use the laptops only when we are practicing a particular technology. Checking email, Facebook, and other off-task sites diminishes your ability to learn and my ability to teach, and is distracting to the other learners in class.

Grading Policies

You must complete ALL assignments to get a passing grade. You must honestly complete all the work yourself, but you may share ideas with each other.

Late & Makeup Work

Due dates for assignments are listed on the calendar. A minimum 10% late penalty will be assessed for work submitted after the assignment deadline unless I have previously approved a later deadline due to extenuating circumstances. Work that is submitted over a week late will receive an additional 10% penalty for each week late. No late work is accepted after the final exam date.

Assignments can be resubmitted until you achieve the grade you desire up to 90% of the total points IF YOU HAVE TURNED IN THE ASSIGNMENT ON TIME. I do this because this is the way we learn new technologies: We keep trying and retrying! Note that this benefit of revising your work is only possible if you turn the assignment in on time.

Gradebook
We will not be using Blackboard. Instead information will be on this website, and we’ll use the new BYU Gradebook. Please check your grades frequently and inform me of any missing or incomplete scores.

Study Habits

In this class, it is very easy to fall behind, particularly if you are unfamiliar with new technologies. Because of this, I have structured all of the major assignments so there is usually part of the assignment due each week, so that it stays manageable. Your responsibility is to know what is due each week. It is best to be in the habit of checking in with the class each week, and expecting that something is due each week.

One of my goals for the class is that you learn how to learn new technologies—because there will always be new technologies to learn! Here are some strategies to help you when learning something new in class:

1. First, check the assignment page on the class website that I have created for each assignment. On the assignment page I have linked to tutorials for most of the technologies we use. There is also a Frequently Asked Questions section of each assignment where I answer the most common questions students have had in the past. There are also rubrics so you know exactly what you need to do to complete the assignments.
2. If my tutorials and materials do not help, you can look for more tutorials on Google and Youtube. I can usually find tutorials for almost any technology I want to learn there.
3. If you are an online student but struggling with the assignment, you are welcome to attend my face-to-face class any week that you wish to receive hands-on help.
4. If none of these things helps you, you are welcome to email me or visit me during office hours. I usually respond to email within 24 hours except on the weekends and when I am out of town.

Grading Scale

Assignment Descriptions

Point Breakdown

BYU Honor Code

In keeping with the principles of the BYU Honor Code, students are expected to be honest in all of their academic work. Academic honesty means, most fundamentally, that any work you present as your own must in fact be your own work and not that of another. Violations of this principle may result in a failing grade in the course and additional disciplinary action by the university. Students are also expected to adhere to the Dress and Grooming Standards. Adherence demonstrates respect for yourself and others and ensures an effective learning and working environment. It is the university's expectation, and my own expectation in class, that each student will abide by all Honor Code standards. Please call the Honor Code Office at 422-2847 if you have questions about those standards.

Preventing Sexual Discrimination and Harassment

Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 prohibits sex discrimination against any participant in an educational program or activity that receives federal funds. The act is intended to eliminate sex discrimination in education. Title IX covers discrimination in programs, admissions, activities, and student-to-student sexual harassment. BYU's policy against sexual harassment extends not only to employees of the university, but to students as well. If you encounter unlawful sexual harassment or gender-based discrimination, please talk to your professor; contact the Equal Employment Office at 422-5895 or 367-5689 (24-hours); or contact the Honor Code Office at 422-2847.

Students with Disabilities

Brigham Young University is committed to providing a working and learning atmosphere that reasonably accommodates qualified persons with disabilities. If you have any disability which may impair your ability to complete this course successfully, please contact the Services for Students with Disabilities Office (422-2767). Reasonable academic accommodations are reviewed for all students who have qualified, documented disabilities. Services are coordinated with the student and instructor by the SSD Office. If you need assistance or if you feel you have been unlawfully discriminated against on the basis of disability, you may seek resolution through established grievance policy and procedures by contacting the Equal Employment Office at 422-5895, D-285 ASB.

Academic Honesty Policy

The first injunction of the BYU Honor Code is the call to be honest. Students come to the university not only to improve their minds, gain knowledge, and develop skills that will assist them in their life's work, but also to build character. President David O. McKay taught that 'character is the highest aim of education' (The Aims of a BYU Education, p. 6). It is the purpose of the BYU Academic Honesty Policy to assist in fulfilling that aim. BYU students should seek to be totally honest in their dealings with others. They should complete their own work and be evaluated based upon that work. They should avoid academic dishonesty and misconduct in all its forms, including but not limited to plagiarism, fabrication or falsification, cheating, and other academic misconduct.

Plagiarism Policy

Writing submitted for credit at BYU must consist of the student's own ideas presented in sentences and paragraphs of his or her own construction. The work of other writers or speakers may be included when appropriate (as in a research paper or book review), but such material must support the student's own work (not substitute for it) and must be clearly identified by appropriate introduction and punctuation and by footnoting or other standard referencing.

Respectful Environment Policy

"Sadly, from time to time, we do hear reports of those who are at best insensitive and at worst insulting in their comments to and about others... We hear derogatory and sometimes even defamatory comments about those with different political, athletic, or ethnic views or experiences. Such behavior is completely out of place at BYU, and I enlist the aid of all to monitor carefully and, if necessary, correct any such that might occur here, however inadvertent or unintentional."
"I worry particularly about demeaning comments made about the career or major choices of women or men either directly or about members of the BYU community generally. We must remember that personal agency is a fundamental principle and that none of us has the right or option to criticize the lawful choices of another." President Cecil O. Samuelson, Annual University Conference, August 24, 2010

"Occasionally, we ... hear reports that our female faculty feel disrespected, especially by students, for choosing to work at BYU, even though each one has been approved by the BYU Board of Trustees. Brothers and sisters, these things ought not to be. Not here. Not at a university that shares a constitution with the School of the Prophets." Vice President John S. Tanner, Annual University Conference, August 24, 2010

Devotional and Forum Attendance Policy

Brigham Young University's devotional and forum assemblies are an important part of your BYU experience. As Elder Dallin H. Oaks stated, 'You neglect your education and fail to use a unique resource of this university if you miss a single one' (from the address 'Challenges for the Year Ahead', 6 September, 1973). Your attendance at each forum and devotional is strongly encouraged.