About+TE831

 TE 831 is a graduate level, online course offered through Michigan State University  through MSU's College of Education's MATC program. This course's focus is on connecting subject matter with appropriate technology. The main purpose of the course is to provide graduate students with ways of thinking about how to integrate technology in their school subject matter and offer them tools for how to do it. In that vein, one of the primary objectives of this course is to provide authentic learning experiences using educational technology to teach subject matter. **//Thus, this course puts a high priority doing as a pathway to understanding.//** Specifically, the goals for the course are for students to develop a conceptual framework for integrating educational technology in school subject matter; examine and become familiar with the issues and terminology related to the field of educational technology; discuss and collaborate with classmates in order to foster an online community; apply technological knowledge and pedagogical knowledge in constructing an authentic lesson; and create digital media to utilize in their own teaching, learning, and reflection.
 * About TE 831 **

The TE 831 course wiki is designed as accessible and dynamic learning portal which utilizes a variety of modes of learning through multimedia. I post each week's lesson to a separate wiki page. The wiki is web accessible  in that it allows for any user, regardless of ability, to navigate and access the content. Hyperlinks are underlined and distinguished by a color for easier navigation. The wiki also includes accessible audio clips, video clips, and readings (either in accessible .pdf form or .doc[x] form) to insure a dynamic learning portal. One additional affordance of this wiki is the ease of collaboration and co-constructed content.
 * The TE 831 Wiki: Accessible and Dynamic **

I will post each week's lesson to a separate wiki page and will use a variety of resources (e.g., videos, PowerPoint slides, readings, and hypermedia (hyperlinks)) to extend students' learning throughout the semester. A wiki also offers the opportunity for students to easily collaborate and construct content. With this in mind, please remember that when you add content or contribute to the wiki, you must click on the "Edit this Page" green icon on the top of every wiki page. You can find more detailed directions for adding and contributing to the wiki on the the Wiki Editing Instructions page. The TE 831 Syllabus or the TE 831 Assignments page may also be used to answer questions you might have about the assignments.

Every Friday (if not before), the lesson for the next week will be posted to the wiki; each week, students will receive an email from me outlining the coming week's lesson and assignments, including a link to the week's lesson. Each lesson is hyper linked to the corresponding date underneath on the calendar under the TE 831 Schedule header in the navigation bar. The “assigned” reading(s) for each week will be linked or uploaded as a PDF to the class wiki. On some weeks you will post responses to the reading(s) on a discussion board, located in a tab on the wiki page for that week’s lesson. In the responding section of the week's lesson, I will provide the directions and discussion prompts for your posts. The discussion posts are between 150 - 200 words in length. When assigned, initial asynchronous discussion posts are due on Fridays by 5:00 PM Eastern Time and follow up comments are due by Sundays by 5:00PM Eastern Time.
 * Discussion Board Posts and Participation Assignments **

Alternatively, on other weeks you will complete practicum assignments, in which you will practice using an Internet technology and/or technological tool. These tech tool posts will be activity based, where you will have the chance to explore and use an Internet technology, report on your thoughts and use(s) in an abstract post. Just like with the discussion posts, I will provide detail instructions for each practicum.

We are all professionals with busy and full lives, and I have designed this course and its schedule with that in mind. Wikis are useful spaces for community engagement and learning, and offer a space for all participants to engage equitably. The success of any wiki (and course, for that matter) is when multiple people contribute and take ownership of the content. //I invite all of you to contribute new ideas, links, photos, videos, and documents to this wiki.// I believe that it is important for all of us to share ideas about uses of technology in our teaching. Using the wiki in this way will help build our professional learning community. Of course, this community extends not only to this semester but to the rest of your teaching career. Therefore, another benefit of a wiki is that it will be continue to be available to you even after you finish the course, which I hope you choose to access!
 * Other Thoughts **