Course Syllabus

"Invisibility of mediating technologies is necessary for allowing focus on, and thus supporting the visibility of, the subject matter. Conversely, visibility of the significance of the technology is necessary for allowing its unproblematic—invisible—use."

— Lave & Wenger, 1991 (from Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation)

Instructor Info

Your instructor's information can be found under the People link on the left. You can communicate with your instructor through the internal Canvas messaging system labeled "Inbox" in the top-right corner of the page. You can set those messages to come to your personal email inbox too.

Course Purpose

IP&T 334 is all about helping you, the K–2 teacher, to responsibly integrate educationally valuable digital technology into your teaching.

That means we're not here to use technology for technology's sake; we're trying to find the best uses of the best tools for K–2 education. The options for integrating technology are always expanding, so we'll be learning together, as well as from each other.

Learning Outcomes

Here's what we hope you'll learn in this course:

• Responsible Tech Integration: Using tech for the right reasons, at the right times, in the best ways possible, to help your students learn what they need to.

• Educationally Valuable Tech Integration: Using tech that is actually worth your time and your students' time. This is super-important.

• Digital Tech: We will learn how to use document cameras, but our major focus will be on digital (21st century) technologies.

• Integrated into content areas: K–2 is all about math & literacy, so that's where we'll focus too.

• Actual Application of Tech: Hopefully, you'll get lots of opportunities to teach with technology this semester.

Adminis-trivia

There is no textbook for this course.

The course is blended, which could be good or bad. Good in that there will be days where you are not required to come to class, and so you have some flexibility to complete assignments and course activities.

It could be bad if you abuse that flexibility, procrastinate, and fall behind. Don't do that.

In accordance with the BYU Registrar's direction:

"The expectation for undergraduate courses is three hours of work per week per credit hour for the average student who is appropriately prepared; much more time may be required to achieve excellence. These three hours may include one hour of lecture plus two hours of work outside class, three hours in a laboratory with little outside work, or any other combination appropriate to a particular course."

The Late Policy is 90% for assignments handed in up to 1 week late, 75% for up to 2 weeks late, 50% for up to 3 weeks late, and 25% until the last day of class.

Canvas

For details on individual assignments, check them out here in Canvas. Don't freak out that Canvas or the internet will somehow sabotage your grade/life. You have a real-life human teacher who uses Canvas only as a tool. If something goes wrong with Canvas, simply inform your instructor and everything will be fine. Humans run this course, not computers.

Think Bigger...

This is a 1-credit course because there are more important things in life than technology—like your future students, and their futures. We'll be looking at how to use technology to best serve your students—as a means to that end, not as an end in itself.

Think of this course as putting a few more tools into your educator's tool-belt. Some really awesome, 21st century digital tools. Schools and school districts like educators with stuffed tool-belts.