Education leaders need to understand the use of technology for teaching, learning, and managing their school environment. These skills include schoolwide technology planning and leadership that incorporate instructional design, curriculum integration with standards, logistics of technology implementation, professional development, and evaluation. Students will develop an understanding of how to create and support technological change through a systems approach. Topics include sources of resistance to change, tools for planning, decision making and change, creating and supporting a culture for learning and change, and managing and institutionalizing change systems.

New technologies are part of the intellectual landscape in which new kinds of knowledge are breaking down the boundaries of previous distinct disciplines. The design and use of new technologies make possible new approaches to learning, new contexts for leaning, new tools to support learning, and new understandings of the dynamics of the learning process itself. This course examines the role of technology relative to the key concepts of active learning, metacognition, and transfer of knowledge from multidisciplinary perspectives on learning. Based on the new science of learning, students will develop and implement technology related strategies that align instructional technology to standards-based instruction, teach problem solving and higher-order thinking skills, promote cooperative learning, and use reflective teaching and inductive approaches to increase student achievement.

This course explores how educators use online collaborative technology tools in the classroom and in professional development so that all learners achieve at higher levels. Online collaborative tools provide a new set of technologies that focus on the social collaborative aspect of the Internet. These tools include, but are not limited to: learning management systems, wikis, webinars, image repositories, document sharing, and bookmarking tools. The collaboration and interaction aspect of these tools provide novel opportunities for K-12 students to understand rigorous content, think critically, solve problems, collaborate, communicate effectively, and become responsible for their own learning. In addition, the infusion of online collaborative technologies into professional development allows educators the opportunity to utilize methods and strategies for effective collaboration beyond the walls of the schoolhouse. This class will introduce online collaborative tools and, together, participants will explore instructional implications, best practices, and learning activities and objectives that benefit students in the K-12 classroom setting and teachers in their professional development.

The increasing impact of a knowledge economy and globalization has been a catalyst to the fields of knowledge management and organizational decision-making. This course is designed to introduce knowledge management concepts into an educational context and to provide an in depth focus on data-driven decision making in educational organizations and institutions. Participants investigate how decisions and strategies are developed and how tacit or explicit knowledge can be identified, captured, structured, valued and shared for effective use. Course topics include leadership and strategic management relative to organizational decision-making, managerial and organizational structures, organizational learning, and decision support systems. A related intent is to develop an understanding of data mining metrics that can be used to create predictive models that support systemic change in schools. Opportunities are provided for participants to use online and electronic tools that can assist in facilitating meaningful conversations about instruction and learning among their school's faculty and staff.

The graduate internship provides students the opportunity to individualize their program experience, to sharpen existing skills, to gain new skills, and to pursue their technology interests. The internship is designed to produce a professional, customized learning experience that stretches the student through his/her participation in the development, design, implementation, or evaluation of high-quality technology products, projects, or services. Internships are aligned to individual student’s schedules and can include collaborative opportunities with public and private sector organizations and agencies that have local, regional, national, or international interests.