Now in its second year, the program is focusing on encouraging teachers to collaborate online to create and implement lesson plans that let students work together on projects. It also includes a section on how to assess students’ progress in meeting learning objectives.
The program’s first class of educators included 180 teachers and administrators from all of the state’s 17 school districts.
The report notes that University of Nevada, Las Vegas professors Neal Strudler and P.G. Schrader evaluated the program’s first year and found that the project has had a positive impact on teachers’ technology integration and that teachers have shown significant improvements.
“Now I look at iPods and the use of Twitter in educational terms. Before I started this project, I had no clue as to the educational possibilities of such things,” said Nevada teacher Kathy Buckmaster in the NCTET report. “Teachers have to be willing to learn how this technology can be integrated if we ever expect to move into a true 21st-century learning environment.”
State technology initiatives
Other advocacy groups also are demonstrating EETT’s importance in schools and districts across the nation.
On March 31, the State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA) released the 2011 Individual State Profile Reports, which describe highlights of each state’s EETT grant program. In-depth profiles were released in early April and illustrate state technology directors’ strategies in identifying and meeting program goals, scaling up innovations, and coordinating ed-tech funding.
For instance, the Southeast Arkansas Education Service Cooperative used a $233,541 EETT grant to create Tech Camp for Kids, which offered an innovative technology learning environment for teachers and students using video production tools to produce real-world learning scenarios products.
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