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Message From the Directors

Our M.S. in Educational Technology empowers you to understand and use technology in your own learning and teaching immediately, and to share your new knowledge with colleagues. Join us and fellow educators to create learning materials and systems where each learner can achieve his or her full potential. We'll help you become a partner—with new skills, knowledge, and awareness—in the educational changes that will occur.

In 2012, the New Media Consortium released it 5th Horizon Report for K-12. Each year they identify key trends that the advisory board considered to be key drivers of educational technology adoptions over the next five years. You can expect to be involved in these trends in your near future. These trends are (in descending order of importance):

  1. Education paradigms are shifting to include online learning, hybrid learning and collaborative models.
  2. The abundance of resources and relationships made easily accessible via the Internet is increasingly challenging us to revisit our roles as educators.
  3. As the cost of technology drops and school districts revise and open up their access policies, it is becoming increasingly common for students to bring their own mobile devices.
  4. People expect to be able to work, learn, and study whenever and wherever they want.
  5. Technology continues to profoundly affect the way we work, collaborate, communicate, and succeed
  6. There is a new emphasis in the classroom on more challenge-based, active learning.

(Horizon Report 2012 K-12 Edition, pp. 7-8)

At the same time, you as a K-12 educator face these significant challenges:

  1. Digital media literacy continues its rise in importance as a key skill in every discipline and profession, especially teaching.
  2. K-12 must address the increased blending of formal and informal learning.
  3. The demand for personalized learning is not adequately supported by current technology or practices.
  4. Institutional barriers present formidable challenges to moving forward in a constructive way with emerging technologies.
  5. Learning that incorporates real life experiences is not occurring enough and is undervalued when it does take place.
  6. Many activities related to learning and education take place outside the walls of the classroom and thus are not part of traditional learning metrics.

NMC Horizon Report 2012 K-12 Edition (pp. 9-10)

Our program is designed to prepare you to navigate these very changing waters of teaching and learning. Come join us and help us all move ahead in a solid pedagogically sound manner. Become a leader and player in this new educational model.

 

Bette E. Schneiderman, Ph.D.
Michael Byrne, Ph.D.