slevin@uiuc.edu

jbuell@uiuc.edu

This article describes a framework to support the integration of technology into teacher education courses. It provides a model that uses technology tools and faculty collaboration to strand technology throughout a two-year certification program, linking national and state technology standards to classroom activities. Two web-based database tools used to implement the technology strand, Teacher Education Activities and TEbase, are described. This framework can be used by colleges and universities needing to implement technology into their teacher education certification programs.

Over the last decade, our world has undergone rapid changes in technology. Everywhere you look, technology is becoming a part of our society from business and industry to our personal lives. In view of these changes, many educational organizations including the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) have developed learning standards. In 1997, the ISTE Standards Committee recommended a set of Technology Standards for All Teachers that has been adopted by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) (National Council for Accreditation of Teacher, Education, 1997). This year, the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) has revised these national technology standards and are in the process of adopting these standards for use by candidates seeking teacher certification (Illinois State Board of Education, 1998). Addressing the need to integrate these standards into teaching practice, the College of Education at the University of Illinois has developed and has been implementing a framework to integrate technology instruction into a redesigned teacher education certification program (Levin, Buell, & Levin, 1999; Levin, Buell, & Levin, 1998; Levin & Waugh, 1998; Thurston, et al., 1996).

Many different approaches are being taken to integrate technology use into pre-service programs (Brehm, et al., 1997, Handler & Strudler, 1997; Kahn, 1997). Some universities require students to take a technology course in which they learn about different educational software, create web pages, browse the web for resources, and create multimedia presentations. In some cases, a technology course is not taken until the end of the certification program or the content of the course has little or no connection to other methods courses offered in the program. By not using technology continuously throughout their program, students may learn but then quickly forget how to use technology in their teaching and learning.

The College of Education took a different approach to integrating technology into its certification programs. A new course, Content Area Applications of Educational Technology , was developed. However, instead of pre-service teachers taking an isolated course in the use of technology in education, the course content is stranded throughout the other pre-service courses and teaching experiences spanning the two year program. This stranded course is coordinated by a faculty member experienced in the use of educational technologies across content areas and grade levels. In this framework, students are actively engaged in learning how to use technology in their content area and learning how to develop and implement lesson plans that include the use of technology in their teaching. The course syllabus spans the two years of the pre-service teacher education program. Five major topics are included in the technology strand: Computers in the K-12 classroom, Computer networks, Instructional & classroom management strategies, Social issues, and Keeping current with technology.

The major course topics were then broken down into more detail with suggested activities. A short example of the stranded syllabus in Table 1 demonstrates how the technology syllabus was stranded across several semesters linking topics, standards, and classroom activities.

(insert Table 1 here)

A number of meetings between the content course instructors and the technology instructor were held to discuss what kinds of activities in the technology strand syllabus would be most useful for faculty to use in their teaching and for students to learn. These activities were then mapped to the technology standards and entered into a web-accessible database that could be accessed via the Web. http://lrsdb2.ed.uiuc.edu:591/235suggests

(insert Figure 1 here. Teacher Education Activities Database)

This Teacher Education Activities database was also designed to enable faculty to easily add, delete or modify the information in the database via a web interface. Included in this database is a set of resources (readings, templates, tutorials, etc.) to more easily enable teacher education faculty to integrate these activities into their existing syllabus.

(insert Figure 2 here. Detail of an activity in the Teacher Education Activities Database)

Based on our previous research on the level of technology experience of students coming into the teacher education program, we found that students tend to have basic familiarity with word processing and web browsers, although there are some students who come into the program with much more or less expertise with technology. In September 1998, elementary and secondary students entering into the redesigned Teacher Education program were asked to complete a self-assessment survey on their use of technology. This presurvey was used as a baseline for tracking student progress and identifying technology topics that needed to be addressed over the two-year program.

Sixty-six elementary and one hundred forty-seven secondary education students completed the presurvey. Secondary education students were further identified by their area of specialization: Mathematics (32), English (59), Social Studies (33) and Science (23). There were no significant differences between elementary and secondary student responses on any pre-survey question.

Sixty-six percent of the students reported that most of their computing was done in their home or dorm (Elementary 75%, Mathematics 75%, English 53%, Social Studies 85%, Science 35%) while 29% of the responding education students used computers at work and 5% in other locations. The type of computer students used most often was a desktop PC (72%) with a modem (63%), CD-ROM drive (66%) and sound capability (66%). Thirty-six percent of the students have an Ethernet connection. Email was used daily by 85% of the students and 55% accessed the Web on a weekly basis. Ninety percent of the students had never created a web page. Students were also asked to rate their overall computer skills. Sixty-five percent of the students rated their skills average, 20% rated themselves above average, 14% identified their computer skills as below average, and only 1% identified themselves as expert computer users.

Students were asked to identify whether or not they used a variety of software applications. This data helped faculty select the specific software to use for their courses that best fit the experiences of the students. Table 2 summarizes the total responses. Modal responses are highlighted in bold type.

(insert Table 2 here)

Table 2 indicates that the majority of students came into the program familiar with and frequently using word processing, email, and web browsing software, while most of the students had little to no experience with spreadsheets, databases, presentation software, online discussion programs, constructing webpages, and using multimedia tools and CD-ROMs. This information helped faculty select software applications to use in their teaching that would be most familiar to the students.

Table 3 describes students’ self assessment of their expertise with different categories of software tools. Modal responses are highlighted.

(insert Table 3 here)

Close to 60% of the students identified themselves as advanced users of email and word processing with 46.7% of the respondents reporting intermediate expertise with graphing calculators. On the other hand, a significant number of students reported having little to no experience constructing web pages, using listservs, spreadsheets, presentation software, CD-ROM reference materials, multimedia tools and databases. This information was helpful to identify the focus of technology instruction within the methods courses.

The initial implementation of the technology strand focused on the secondary program. The faculty teaching the four secondary content area sections thought it would be appropriate for students to begin learning about technology by creating personal webpages and uploading files to a web server, by using an online discussion program for class discussions and reflections on student work, by searching the web for content specific resources that can be used in secondary classrooms and by identifying how technology is used in their field placements. In two of the four sections, faculty required students to begin developing electronic portfolios (B. Levin, 1996). In addition, each instructor chose other technology related activities to implement in the first semester of the pre-service program. These included using a draw program or a scanner to create a graphic layout of their field placement classroom, evaluating CD-ROM software, using presentation software or the web to present projects conducted during the semester, requiring all written papers to be word processed and formatted, using spreadsheet programs and graphing calculators in mathematics investigations, downloading information from the web, and using technology with diverse communities. Table 4 identifies seven of the eighteen NCATE/ISTE Technology Competencies that have been addressed during the first semester.

(insert Table 4 here)

While the initial focus of implementing the technology strand involved the secondary program, elementary students in the redesigned program used word processing for their assignments and conducted surveys of technology used in their field placements. Beginning this semester, elementary students will learn how to create personal webpages and engage in other activities using technology.

To further organize and manage the stranding of technology in the elementary and secondary programs, a second web-accessible database, which we call TEbase, was developed. Figure 3 shows the student view of TEbase where students submit individual and group technology assignments for each course taken over a two-year period. These assignments can be typed directly into the database or students can enter a URL that points to the location of their assignment (usually linked to their personal homepage or the web-based discussion archive).

(insert Figure 3 about here. TEbase Student view screen for submitting assignments )

This tool supports the development of a professional portfolio which is a requirement for graduation. At the present time, all students are required to develop a hard copy portfolio although we are beginning to see many students developing both hard copy and electronic portfolios. These portfolios will be used by students looking for teaching positions after graduation and later in their professional careers.

While students use TEbase as an organizational tool, faculty use TEbase to provide students with feedback on their assignments, grade and record assignments, publish exemplary student work, and map the different assignments to the NCATE/ISTE technology standards. See Figure 4. Faculty can also track students’ progress of their work throughout the semester. With the Grades at a Glance view, faculty can easily identify students who have not submitted assignments, which assignments still need to be graded, and which grade was given for each of the assignments. See Figure 5. While teachers do have the option of requesting paper copies of the assignments, faculty appreciate the ease of using the Web to access students’ assignments either from the university or their homes.

(insert Figure 4 about here. TEbase Faculty view screen for grading assignments and mapping standards)

(insert Figure 5 about here. TEbase Grades at a Glance view)

Several support systems have been put into place to assist faculty in their use and integration of technology into the pre-service curriculum. At the College level, an Office of Educational Technology provides one-on-one consulting and workshops on specific software for faculty and staff. An Instructional Computing Laboratory (ICL) is available for hands-on instruction for students and has a wide variety of software titles available. Several other classrooms throughout the college are equipped with computers and projection equipment for faculty to demonstrate the use of technology in their teaching. External funding from Apple Computer (Unity in the Community Project) and the Illinois State Board of Education (I-57 Project) have provided some hardware, software and technical support to implement collaborative projects between pre-service students and K-12 classrooms. These project have helped some of the pre-service students experience many aspects of life in a K-12 classroom from gathering resources, developing activities, collaborating with diverse groups of students, managing the use of technology in a K-12 classroom, and unforeseen issues that affect the expected outcomes of the projects.

The Department of Curriculum & Instruction provides support to faculty by providing a faculty member with a 50% time appointment to develop, coordinate and help facilitate technology integration into the pre-service program. Teaching assistants (TAs) with technology expertise are also provided for some of the pre-service courses.

In the initial implementation of the technology strand, the teaching assistants played a major role in hands-on instruction for pre-service students. These TAs and the technology strand coordinator met with pre-service students during scheduled class times to instruct students in the use of TEbase, online discussion programs, web browsers, and file transfer protocol clients. In most cases, due to class size and limited computers available for instruction, classes were divided into two or more groups and were rotated through the Instructional Computing Laboratory. In many cases, students made appointments with the technology coordinator or their teaching assistant for additional one-on-one technology help. Students also reported receiving help from friends, other students, and computer lab monitors.

This method of technology instruction allowed students to learn how to use the various software applications for their class assignments. However, due to large class sizes, faculty were often teaching other students in another classroom and therefore unavailable to learn how to use the software along with the students to teach the actual use of the technology, or to assist students who were having problems in the computer laboratory during class time. In addition, faculty were still in the process of developing and implementing a redesigned curriculum for the teacher education program, teaching other courses, and conducting their own research. Faculty were not provided release time to develop this new program or time to learn to use technology well enough to be able to teach it to their students. Several workshops were provided by the Office of Educational Technology and the technology strand coordinator, but due to everyone’s busy schedule, many faculty teaching these courses were unable to attend. Despite the lack of faculty training, secondary pre-service students were given eight to fourteen hours of hands-on instruction in the computer laboratory during the first semester and were very successful in using technology for their assignments.

The introduction of web-based assignments and online discussions have also increased the amount of communication between faculty and students. While communication between faculty and students is very important and beneficial to the learning experience, faculty have reported an increase in the number of email messages from students, an increase in the number of hours spent providing feedback and grading assignments on the web, and an increase in reading hundreds of electronic journal entries posted on a regular basis by their students. This increase in asynchronous communication has not only been helpful to the students, but also has increased the amount of time required by the faculty.

During the second semester, a focus will be placed on the elementary methods courses to introduce students to creating personal webpages and engaging in other activities using technology. Over the next three semesters, faculty will continue to integrate technology into the elementary and secondary teacher education programs providing students with hands-on training, readings, demonstrations, and guidance in the development and implementation of lesson plans and units that include the use of technology. During this time, additional resources will be added to the Teacher Education Activities database by the faculty member coordinating the technology strand.

The teacher education faculty will continue to work together to address barriers they face and to strive to overcome these barriers to implementing the technology strand. Of the barriers already identified, several concerns are already being addressed.

While faculty can not reduce class size to accommodate whole class technology instruction in the Instructional Computing Lab in the College of Education, accommodations are being made for next semester to allow faculty the use of other computer laboratories on campus that can accommodate larger class sizes. With this option, faculty may be able to either learn more about using technology along with their students or be able to teach their students to use technology with less assistance from teaching assistants or the technology strand coordinator.

As we admit additional cohorts of elementary and secondary students into this redesigned certification program, faculty will be more comfortable with the new curriculum and may have more flexibility in their schedules to attend more workshops and learn new ways to integrate technology into their teaching.

Organizing one’s time is crucial to not becoming overwhelmed with the increased number of online assignments. There are various strategies that faculty can use to assist them with managing the increased volume of email messages, feedback and reading of assignments. Some of these strategies include using email filters to sort email and creating stationary for standard replies. A new feature of TEbase will include a mechanism for faculty to create several standard feedback statements when grading student work. Faculty can also reduce the amount of time spent on grading assignments by assigning more group activities or by dividing some of the assignment reviews with the teaching assistants. Faculty will also be able to save time by drawing upon the resources in the Teacher Education Activities database instead of creating their own handouts.

We recently were awarded funds from the University of Illinois’ Educational Technologies Board to set up a special web and database server for the Teacher Education program. This server will provide additional web space for students’ assignments and a high-end computer to develop and modify tools like TEbase to assist faculty and students in managing and organizing their work. This grant will also provide students with access to a writable CD-ROM drive so that they may be able to easily take with them their electronic portfolios to use in their job searches and in further development of professional portfolios.

With the development of technology tools like the Teacher Education Activities database, TEbase, and collaboration, faculty can work together to develop a redesigned teacher certification program that strands technology throughout the courses, aligns activities with standards and improves communication with other faculty and students. The 21^st century teachers will face many challenges in their new careers. By learning to use technology to organize, manage, and communicate, these pre-service teachers are beginning a process of lifelong learning which is vital to the education of our children in our highly technical society.