As budget drives learning - if/which application

I recently read a post on TeachPaperless entitled "What is an Educator." It addresses the recent changes in Ning which is no longer free, or at least not to the extent that it was before. However, the question really isn't just about Ning, which if you have a K12 email address you are able to get a mini version of it at no cost. This is similar also to Voicethread and several other commonly used Web 2.0 technologies.

For me and my colleagues the question gets more complicated. I work for a public university and have a .edu email address. With that, I have choices like institutional licensing for thousands of people or the opportunity to only have 3 creations for free with my login. Well, what I really want to do is just show faculty and K12 educators I work with what they can do and have available to them. I can't always show them what it will be like because I don't have access. Or I want to tailor examples but I've used up all my free space. What about those educators that get excited about emerging technologies? If they are in higher ed teaching 100 students or less, they don't want a license for thousands of users. These days they don't have deep pockets and departmental budgets for technology don't exist. Most of these applications won't be adopted by the entire university community or school district and certainly not on behalf of a single teacher.

Where do we draw the line on free access and paid use? I realize the companies need to make their money somewhere and nobody has any money to spend. However am I less of an educator because my audience is older than 17?  Add to that. most educators don't just use one application, they use many. By the time we pay for all of them it becomes a costly venture but we know there are different tools for different performance tasks and learning styles so we can't just stick to one.

So back to the very good question posed in "What is an Educator," how do you define educator? Then to expand on that with another question... What would be a reasonable model for emerging technology companies to use so that they can make enough profit to continue to function but not cost those who have shallow pockets so much that we can't continue to use their products? It's these tools that help our students grow, learn and someday become the CEOs of tomorrow.

Texting and literacy skills

I happened upon a BBC article about texting supposedly not having any negative impact on literacy skills, in particular the ability to spell. The claim is that it ties in nicely with phonics and students need to understand how a word is actually spelled and the phonetics in order to shorten it.

As a language educator and a technology in learning enthusiast who has often given presentations on using cellphones and texting for learning, I'm doubtful. I'm mostly doubtful because the study is based on English speakers. As a rather fluent speaker of Spanish, a very phonetic language where there is only 1 silent letter and the vowels sound the same regardless of where they are in a word, and a native speaker of English, a language which is far from phonetic, I'm just not buying it.

Now, that isn't to say that if your students are not learning the literacy skills they should have it is the fault of texting. I'm just not believing that there is a positive impact on their ability to spell. I think there are many factors involved and that there are other skills to be gained from texting. In fact as a language educator it is becoming increasingly important to teach students proper texting abbreviations in the target language. In many countries computers aren't as ubiquitous as in the US but cellphones are everywhere and they all have inexpensive texting plans (something that the US is behind on.) For a student to go overseas for school or work, they will need to know texting abbreviations to communicate with those they befriend during their stay.

So, the final study of the impact of texting on English literacy won't be complete until next year. Regardless, I don't think any changes in our literacy are only a result of one factor and with respect to texting, I'm not convinced that the impact is one of improved spelling. What are your thoughts/predictions of the final study?

Life on the road

Last week I presented seminars to K-16 language educators on the east coast. It was both one of the craziest and most rewarding experiences I have had in a long time. I now understand how musicians on tour mess up and say "Hello Chicago" when they are actually in Detroit. My trip was 5 states in 5 days. It was kind of nuts. I started in Burlington, VT. From there, along with my program manager/logistics guru, we drove to Manchester, NH followed by Waltham, MA near Boston. From there we flew to Philadelphia, drove to Cherry Hill, NJ and then on to State College, PA. Each day I presented a 5 hour seminar to some amazing language educators. While I didn't always know which state/city I was in at the time, and therefore avoided saying it out loud, I was so energized by the participants that location was completely irrelevant.

My topic was emerging technologies in the language classroom. While I covered more options than any one teacher could possibly take on, my participants all offered me some phenomenal new ways of using technologies that I hadn't tried out before. I came away each day with one or two more ideas and approaches. Web 2.0 is about a collective intelligence. That definitely came alive with the sharing and collaboration of my participants each day.

Since my return I have had contact with a number of my participants and I hope that they will keep in touch to tell me where they end up going with their new ideas. More importantly, I hope they continue to use our seminar website and communicate with each other. It's that collaboration and communication on a regular basis that helps us all with our professional development in times when funds are too tight to provide much in the way of opportunity.

More than just a break

It's that time of year again. Passover and Easter, for those who celebrate, spring vacation and my birthday. I got the usually email from my mom asking what I wanted for my birthday. As usual I ignored it, as I do my birthday. Never been a huge priority for me. Another day in the life of... So, I got a second email. This time a reminder that my birthday is coming soon and asking me what I wanted. I wrote back that I wanted to not deal with that right now. Something I suspect my father might say...

As I reflect over the four+ decades of birthdays, many of which have fallen during Passover, I remember the struggle to find a cake that was Kosher. Back in the late 60's/early 70's there really weren't any flourless cakes, or at least none that tasted like something you would want to eat. My mom, always tried her best though to find something that would be appropriate for a celebration. I suspect there were some that were not celebrated on my actual day so that I could have a proper cake. My mom went to great lengths for me and always has.

I then started to think about all of this. Almost 43 years ago my mom went into labor, an extraordinarily painful experience. Been there, done that myself. She pushed me out, quicker than my dad expected as the movie he was watching in the waiting room hadn't yet ended. All of this effort on my mom's part, alone except for the doctors and nurses, and only to spend the next 43 years having me aggravate her.

So, what do I want for my birthday? I don't deserve anything but my mom does. I recommend that all cards, e or otherwise, wishes, etc, go to my mom this year. If you're a friend of mine, you can thank her. if you are family, you can ask her why on earth she has put up with me for so long. Or just wish her well, she deserves it.

Thanks, Mom for all that you do and put up with. (Yes, I know I ended with a preposition...)

Getting started...First step isn't always a doosy

Overwhelmed by all that is out there? You're not alone. We all feel that way at times with juggling teaching, grading, creating new ideas and trying to learn to use emerging technologies that change so rapidly. Having the opportunity to get an elementary school started with technology integration has been a tremendous opportunity as we pave the way or better said, stumble, fall and get up to start again. For the district, we may be the pioneers. In the world view, where have we been that we are so behind???

Regardless of where you are, and we are all in different stages of learning, there is something for everyone. For those who are just getting started and are totally new to today's emerging technologies, I want to recommend a couple of new reads. In case you are wondering, they are both free, in true Web 2.0 technology style.

1) The Amazing Web 2.0 Projects Book edited by Terry Freedman contains 87 project suggestions. If you aren't sure what you want to do to get started using the web this is a great book of ideas. It is organized nicely by age of the students for each project described which helps to narrow your ideas to age appropriate options.

2) Twelve Essentials for Technology Integration by Richard Byrne is an online document for some suggested web tools to get you started. The tools chosen all have free options for educators. It's a quick easy read. Although it doesn't go in depth into examples for use, it does describe what each tool can do and offers some brief suggestions for their use.

Feeling overwhelmed is a common theme for those who are first getting started with emerging technologies. There is so much information and so many options it becomes difficult to narrow that down and know where to get started. While my primary focus is on technology tools for learning, I  struggle to keep up with the newest, latest, and greatest. It takes time, of which none of us have enough.

So here is my short list of what I use to keep up:

1. Twitter, my PLN (professional learning network) is the key to discovering new tools, staying on top of the latest articles and research, and a great place to get instant feedback on any questions I have.
2. Netvibes helps me to keep up with all the blogs I want to follow. I make it my home page so when I open a browser I see all the news I most want to read. It does take scheduling time to read it though.
3. Social Bookmarking with diigo has been crucial to my ability to return to the tools and ideas that I learn from my PLN. In addition I joined a group of educators on diigo and receive regular suggestions from that group for other sites and information of interest to me. For research diigo allows me to annotate and highlight content in any online article I read. As an added bonus any items I bookmark also go straight to my delicious feed.

I would love to know what others are using to make the technology in their world manageable. How do you keep up and what are your favorite tools?

Uninterrupted text...Oh, my!

Nothinng like the tongue in cheek Onion articles to give us a little reality check. The article "Nation Shudders At Large Block Of Uninterrupted Text" was brought to my attention this morning. In addition to LOL (laughing out loud, for those of you unfamiliar with "texting" abbreviations), it gave me pause. What is it that our students come into our classrooms expecting to see? 

There have been many claims about how computers are ruining the lives of our children. They aren't reading any more... There is a great conglomeration of statistics that I found on the Media Literacy Clearinghouse site. It includes statistics from Pew, FCC, and several others. Not surprisingly they all report an increase in the use of technology and a decrease in the use of print media. But does that necessarily correlate to we are reading less? I'm not so sure that it does. There are a number of videos that talk about how the way our students learn has changed and actually demonstrate that students are reading more, although perhaps differently. If you aren't familiar with the "Did you know" Videos you might check this out:


As teachers we spend lots of time thinking about learning styles and differentiated learning so we can meet the needs of our students. Is technology just offering us another way to do that? If students are motivated to read, or if you are finding this blog post more interesting because the text is broken up by related pictures and some video, perhaps you too are using those "in text" clues to help you reconsider what reading looks like in today's world. 

Recently Apple released some new hardware, the iPad. Tablet PCs aren't a new concept but the look and feel of the iPad may be for some people. How will this technology change reading for our students? Not long ago the Kindle was a "must have" for those who wanted books digitally. Are we really reading less or just reading differently? What are the different skills we use when we read digitally? Are our students spending more time skimming and scanning content? How will textbook companies respond? As you can see I have more questions than answers. 

What I do know is that I'm a huge fan of diigo as it helps me share electronically what I'm reading with friends and followers. But it is even more than just a social bookmarking tool as it also lets me highlight and comment on the content that I read. While I could do that before in a traditional text, those notes were only for me. With diigo, I can share my comments and highlights with others with whom I collaborate. I'm still reading but now my reading has become more active. Sharing what I read adds new questions and new ideas as I develop meaning from a text as a result of not just my own thoughts but those of my colleagues who are able to read the same exact "page" of text. 

Now that you are overloaded with too much "uninterrupted text" (the last 4 paragraphs) let me know what your thoughts are. How is technology changing the face of reading in our students? What are your predictions and concerns for the future readers we are shaping in the classroom today?

Light bulb moment

Today was the first full day of the Central States Conference in Minneapolis. It's always a wonderful experience to see language teaching colleagues old and new, check out what's in the exhibit hall and roll the dice to see if I pick the best sessions of the many that are offered. It's interesting as I reflect on my teaching, not only in the classroom tools but in the content that I teach and how over the years that changes the face of my choices in sessions. This year I'm combining a look at technology tools in education and attending mostly elementary sessions. As I retool myself to meet the needs of my current audience, I recognize that what I'm doing today may be completely different from what I'm doing in five years. Through all of this the pedagogy and best practices aren't changing, its how we approach them.

So, what do I mean by that. Let's start with mobile learning. When asked most people seem to be thinking of cell phones, smart phones, any technology that they can carry with them so that you can learn anytime anywhere. While I don't disagree with that, I don't see it as a new idea either. People have been learning "mobilely" forever. As a language teacher we know that the best way to get to know a culture and learn a language is to be there. It doesn't happen within the walls of a classroom, it happens outside in the real world. Now we just have some additional tools that can be used to give us some more in depth information than what we perhaps used to have. Or maybe it isn't even the information that has changed so much as the way we access that information. The trick is making it a natural part of our learning. For many teachers it may still be hard to let go enough to recognize that learning can happen when the teacher isn't around and the teacher's role can be to ask the questions that help the students recognize what they have learned in the process of simply being out in the world as observers and explorers.

Another question that has come to mind as I think about the presentation we did today and the workshop I will present tomorrow is terminology. In language teaching we refer to the use of "backward design" of a lesson. The idea of starting with assessment so you know what it is that you want the students to be able to do when they are done. Then you build your learning such that students can reach that goal or demonstrate to what extent they have reached that goal. So why is that "backwards?" Seems to me it is forward design. We don't build a house without having the architects complete plan in place first and then take all the pieces and put them together to reach the final product. Is that design backwards also? I have no answers to that question right now and perhaps it doesn't matter. After all it's just the jargon we use. The most important part is focusing on the learner and being sure that they have the scaffolding in place to learn wherever they are whenever they want to and to have the skills to make sense of what they are experiencing. Those will be the skills that will help them to be creative, contributing members of a society that we can't yet imagine.

Power of the audience...

Groove Salad

So, today was an amazing example of the power of the web and more so the power of a real audience. I have only been blogging for a couple of weeks. Don't really have an "audience" yet as I haven't been particularly public about my blog, at least not until today...

I found myself frustrated as I have been grappling with a tool, Glogster to be specific, for some time now. I love the tool but keep running up against the same wall when I try using it with my own students and helping teachers to use it. I have spent too much time trying to figure out how to "get around" the problem since I can't get through it. I couldn't find a forum on their website or any real way to contact them but I knew I couldn't just complain and do nothing.

Today, about five hours ago I blogged  about it in Glogster are you listening... Then, I tweeted it. Just the title and the link. I wondered if anyone from glogster might catch it. Within two and a half hours, I had a comment back from them.

This is the power of an audience.

I hope that they will in fact take my issues with their tool under consideration thus making the .edu version as embed friendly as the regular version.

Most importantly what I have learned is that it is possible to affect change, or at least a response, by using our voices. There is an audience for all of us.

Thank you glogster, for listening...

Glogster are you listening...

Well glogster, are you listening. I'm not sure as there is no spot for a user forum/help on your website so I'm not sure you are willing to hear feedback. I can only hope I'm not writing this for myself alone...
In review and for those of you unfamiliar with it, glogster is a great way for students to demonstrate what they have learned in the form of a very easy to create poster. While it has many built in graphics, you may also upload your own or link to items that you want from other sites. You can record your own audio and video directly into glogster as well. All around a great idea. Once your posters are created you can embed them into a wiki or blog. Awesome! Now my students, and yours, can still keep all the wonderful things they create in one location behind a password protected site. That's our responsibility as teachers in keeping students identities and information safe. (Although in my case, it is student work not pictures of them or personal data so nothing really to hide or protect IMO.)

Glogster has also created a great section for educators. It is a bit more protected so students won't be seeing inappropriate general content as they are choosing what to add to their glogs. Glogs are also automatically set to private in this area. No advertising cluttering the screen or bombarding students. Thank you for that!

However, the folks at glogster for some reason decided that there was a reason to alter the embed code for these glogs in the education area. I can't for the life of me figure out why but it makes embedding in my course wiki by my students impossible and even if I were to do it for them, it incapacitates the glog. Let me explain...

The embedded image is so large that it gets cut off by the wiki window so that you can't see the entire glog. This is NOT the case with the regular glogster version, only the edu version.

Now, you can change the code in the edu version, assuming you are comfortable looking at code, which I am but not all children can find the correct place to make the change without accidentally deleting the wrong thing. I'm not really interested in doing all the embedding for ALL of my students.

For the sake of argument, let's say I do change each student glog so that is 50% of the original size and can be viewed in the wiki page. Doing so makes the text so small it can't be easily read. Unfortunately the fix for this, available ONLY in the NON-edu version is an automatic dropdown that allows you to view the full version.

They tell me it is for protection, but from what am I protecting myself and my students? Viewing their work? If the glog is set to private and only available by entering a password protected wiki where once found by the authenticated user, that user clicks on the "view full size" link, which takes you to the full size version (marked as private) what on earth are they protecting? PLEASE PLEASE GLOGSTER, reconsider putting the same embed options in the .edu version as you have in the regular version. This is a show stopper as far as user friendliness in the .edu community.

On another note, perhaps less important, why am I not able to create usernames for my students? You have a crazy assigning system. I realize you are trying to protect student identities but that is really my job as the teacher. My students have more than enough different IDs to remember for things. Give me the option of uploading my classlist or naming my students the way that I want to, OR using your naming convention. PBWorks figured out how to do that for eductators, why can't you?

So glogster, you really do have a great product but I fear that the developers have lost track of our reality in the classroom. Please don't force me back to using paper and limiting my student's audience again...

Project funds, slowly but surely...

This morning as I was reading one of the many links provided to me by one of the people in my PLN, I stumbled upon Donors Choose. What a phenomenal idea. We no longer can sit back and complain about what we don't have for that cool thing that we want to do in our classrooms or with our students. There is now a website out there where we can write up what our project is, our learning goals, and what exactly we need to make it happen. So, let's no longer sit back and wait for it to come to us. Let's motive and make it happen for our students!

 Photo: Cambodia
--By Talea Miller, Online NewsHour

Begin blogging...with students

So in my last post at the end I mentioned a blogging tool for kids. Today, my PLN (professional learning network-ie. twitter) pointed me to an old post from October 2008 entitled 33 Ways to use blogs in your classroom. A a couple things struck me about this post so I thought I would point them out to those of you who might be just beginning to blog.

1. These are great ideas but in most cases I would change the words "blog about" to post about. I say this because there are so many great ideas that could all be placed into a single blog. Create a class blog in edublogs which uses wordpress, kidblogs, or blogger and you have the ability to create pages. Adding pages for different topics and allowing students to post about those topics through the year creates an e-portfolio. Can you say formative and summative assessment?
2. It's been 2.5 years since the post was put out there. The ideas are still great ones and not much has changed. I think this tool is around for a long time and it is simply a matter of deciding how you want to use it and what works best for your environment.

So, again the best way to decide is to start blogging on your own and before you do that, start reading and commenting on other blogs to get a feel for it. The more comfortable you are when you get started the more natural it becomes. Just write what you are thinking, feeling or reading. If a tool inspires you share it. You can build your own PLN to make up for that lack of time you have to connect with you colleagues during the school day. If you are looking for more resources to determine everything from the pedagogy of blogging to ways to assess it, safety concerns, and to view other class examples, check out this post that covers resources for those educators who want to learn more. 

Right tool, right task

I'm constantly challenged to find the right tool for the right task. I have the pleasure and privilege of working with educators at all levels from elementary to higher ed. Interestingly enough, I find the elementary and secondary educators to be the most innovative and interested in testing out new tools. They do this despite the fact that they are the ones with the most limited access and the greatest battles when it comes to filters. They also have far less time for playing. Do they feel they have less to lose? Are they just more focused on finding the best for their students? Are higher ed educators too tied up in tenure expectations? Maybe it's all of these.

Regardless of the answer, as I delve into working more closely with elementary educators I find new challenges. Many of their students don't have email addresses, or at least not addresses that they know and use. There are many concerns, and rightly so, about safety and privacy. These restrictions make it that much more difficulty to find the right tool for the right task.

An article I read also brought up an interesting example of where restrictions for safety of the students isn't always in their best interest. The blog entry Robbing Students of Recognition demonstrates the intersection between trying to keep our children safe and keeping them from being proud of what they do. The internet is one of the first places people search to learn about people. So, shouldn't the internet also be a place where students demonstrate to the world how amazing they are? Where should that line be drawn? Are we protecting them from the world, from themselves, or from the education system that's in fear of a law suit? And at what cost?

My job, as one who keeps looking for the right tool for the right task, is to keep searching for what will make everyone happy. Today's tool of choice is a blogging tool made just for elementary and middle school students who don't have email addresses. Check out Kidblog for a really easy to set up easy to use blog that you can jump into in no time with your students. It does offer very simple to use protection and privacy settings so that student content can be as open to the world or as hidden as the teacher chooses to make it. Students can have their own logins without an email address so they can each lay personal claim to the content they create rather than all posting under a single class login. If you're looking to blog, give it a whirl and see what you think. If you have another tool that you would recommend for this task, I'd love to hear about it so please share.

Is it time to integrate & collaborate in technology education?

I recently was introduced by a colleague to a couple of books that may be of interest to elementary educators. Both books are published by ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education). The first one, IT's Elementary! Integrating Technology in the Primary Grades covers everything from infrastructure for your tech team to curricular redesign and lesson plans. The chapters include indicators for grade levels at which different types of technology skills might be taught. While the copyright indicates 2007 and technology changes at the speed of light, I believe there are still some great overall approaches that would be helpful to elementary educators as they decide what direction they want to go with technology.

The second book, The Computer Lab Teacher’s Survival Guide: K–6 Units for the Whole Year, Second Edition came out in 2009. This book strikes me as the REACH teachers textbook in terms of the title. However, in looking at the table of starting from about Chapter 4 or 6, what I see are skills that students need to learn as part of computing but rather activities that are intricately connected to the content learned in the "regular" classroom. Perhaps it is time for REACH to not be it's own "pull out" special but be almost entirely connected to the learning that is happening in each grade level classroom.

Take a look, see what you think. How might you change "remodel" your curriculum? How might you work more closely and collaboratively with your specials?

Skills vs. Assessment

This is the first year that my daughter has experienced rigorous testing. As a third grader she lost somewhere around three weeks to learn how to take standardized tests. Yes there is a skill to test taking, and there are some people who are much better at it than others. But are we teaching to the test?  Personally, I'm an over-thinker. I do horribly on those tests. However, give me a real project, an essay question, or any other substantial content to produce from scratch and you will find a completely different person underneath that low-test-score exterior.  Will my daughter suffer as I did? Or will she be more like her dad, a genius at multiple guess but it takes every ounce of energy and brain power in his body to write a paragraph. Learning styles, did anyone say learning styles? According to Michael Simkins,"we can get some initial gains on tests by teaching to the test and practicing test taking skills. Ultimately, though, we're going to hit an achievement wall." He goes on to suggest that teaching higher order thinking skills is really the way to get over that achievement wall.

Meanwhile in our school district some schools have already started Saturday school programs to help students who aren't testing to the required level. I've been told that Saturday school will be a requirement soon for many children. So, let's take a huge number of students with ELL backgrounds, difficulty focusing and any number of other barriers and put them in school more to simply aggravate their feelings of inadequacy. I wonder how those ELL students might do on the same test given to them in their first language. What if the kids who had trouble concentrating had more time to burn off energy so they could come back to focusing (oh, wait, we just took that time away because we took their Saturday...) All of this extra school is linked to the fear of lost funding and NCLB. Do we really need more seat time or could it be the quality of the seat time that students get that should be adjusted? Smaller class sizes might help the struggling kids but the funding was pulled for that... As an educator I have never agreed with standardized testing as a means to determine applicable knowledge and even less so when I consider the skills today's students need to lead in tomorrow's world.

Arthur C. Clarke questioned, "How can it be, in a world where half the things a man knows at 20 are no longer true at 40 - and half the things he knows at 40 hadn't been discovered when he was 20?" So how do we know what to teach our kids? Perhaps that's the point. It isn't the content that is important so much as the set of skills that go along with the content. According to the article 21st Century Skills: Will Our Students Be Prepared? written in the Tech & Learning Journal back in 2003, we are continuing to look for the same skills as were needed in 2001. Those skills are focused more on higher order thinking. Time to revisit Blooms Taxonomy, revised.

Anyone remember the last time they needed to take a multiple guess test at work? I don't. But, just a few days ago I had to make a complete presentation to a room full of university administrators demonstrating both knowledge and creative ways of approaching difficult situations. I had to defend/sell my approach to get their buy in on making some changes to a program currently in place. The following day I needed to write a memorandum of understanding. Nope. No multiple-guess skills needed.

As Alvin Toffler so succinctly stated, "The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn." So, if we want to close the gap in our divide and we want our struggling students to "catch up" is it really more hours of school that they need in order to learn how to learn. Are we going at this the right way by giving them more seat time? Does cutting funding to existing art, music and language programs to add 4 year old kindergarten really "fix the problem?" What do you think?

Hopes and Challenges

I'm excited about the opportunity to work with Thoreau teachers as they begin exploring the world of emerging technology and thinking about the possibilities it may offer them and their learning and teaching environment. When I first walked into the school 4 years ago, I wondered if this school would prepare my kids to face the world in front of them. Will they be engaged? Will they develop skills for inquiry? Will they become lifelong learners? Then I started to meet the teachers. There was no question that my children would be able to learn a tremendous amount in our neighborhood school.

However, the question still lingered as to whether or not they would be prepared to demonstrate what they know in ways that their peers, other 21st century learners, are already doing in much of the country. What I didn't see were 21st century tools that would allow today's children to learn in school the way that they learn outside of school. Today's children are living in a world where collaboration happens on a global scale, where we are surrounded by/bombarded with media, and computers are so small they fit in a pocket. The problem was never the teachers, it was the lack of useful tools to help them meet the needs and learning styles of today's students and families.

I'm excited to be a part of the change that is now happening in our public schools and at Thoreau in particular. Part of teaching is learning from your students. What I'm most looking forward to is learning from Thoreau teachers. I only have a cursory knowledge of what goes on in their classrooms and what challenges they are now facing. I look forward to learning about their challenges and having them challenge me to find solutions. I look forward to building a relationship with more Thoreau teachers and hope to help them beyond the scope of this course as they begin to integrate a variety of emerging technologies into their curriculum.