Applying National Standards to Improve Educational Results

EDTC Program Overview

The University of Delaware's Master of Education in Educational Technology (EDTC) program is based on the assumption that new media and the Internet can have a positive effect on teaching and learning. The EDTC program provides the master's degree candidate with both a theoretical and a practical grounding in educational technology methods and techniques, emphasizing theories of teaching and learning that support these methods. To demonstrate mastery of the program's goals, all candidates complete the same series of seven program assessments. Depending on the candidate's career path, these assessments are evaluated by rubrics developed according to standards of the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) or the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT). Candidates who hold a basic teaching license have the option of earning the ISTE-defined Technology Facilititation (ISTE-TF) endorsement, which is assessed via rubrics through which K-12 teachers exhibit the knowledge, skills, and dispositions needed to teach technology applications, support student learning, and prepare other teachers to use technology effectively across the curriculum. Other teachers and candidates from higher education, government, and industry are assessed via rubrics based on the five AECT standards of (1) design, (2) development, (3) utilization, (4) management, and (5) evaluation.

Upon admission to the program, all EDTC candidates begin on the AECT track. Only K-12 certified teachers may apply for admission to the program's ISTE-TF track. To apply to the ISTE-TF track, teachers complete the ISTE-TF application form and submit it to their EDTC advisor. Teachers can download the ISTE-TF application from the EDTC forms page.

Background

In 1998, the University of Delaware created an educational technology specialization within the Master of Education program in Curriculum and Instruction. Since its inception, the educational technology specialization has been a popular program that is growing in importance as all levels of education, especially K-12 schools, work to integrate technology across the curriculum.

In 2005, the University of Delaware elevated the educational technology specialization to the status of an M.Ed. concentration, not only to recognize the increasingly strategic importance of this field in our society, but also to respond to the students' most frequent request related to this program, which is to have the title “Educational Technology” appear on their transcripts as evidence that the candidates completed a degree program in educational technology.

National Standards

The EDTC program has aligned its assessments with the national standards of two specialty professional associations, namely, ISTE and AECT. All degree candidates complete the same series of seven program assessments. K-12 teachers who seek the TF endorsement are assessed via rubrics that align with the ISTE endorsement for Technology Facilitation. Other teachers and candidates from higher education, government, and industry are assessed via rubrics based on the AECT standards for educational technology specialists.

Both the ISTE and AECT standards are informed by a knowledge base of books and articles from the scholarly literature on educational technology. This theoretical grounding in scholarship fits the School of Education's view of its faculty and students as reflective practitioners who learn from the experience of others in developing their own reflective practice. Appropriate readings from the ISTE and AECT knowledge bases are assigned and interwoven throughout the various courses in the EDTC program.

Facilities

The University of Delaware provides an excellent base of library and instructional media services in support of the EDTC program. As first-place winner of the national EDUCAUSE award for campus networking, UD offers EDTC students one of the nation's finest technological infrastructures. All classrooms are wired for high-speed Internet access and are equipped for multimedia computer projection. Wireless hotspots cover the campus, and state-of-the-art computer labs make computer access ubiquitous. The award-winning Morris Library houses one of the country's richest print and electronic research collections enhanced by a state-of-the-art multimedia production facility to which all EDTC students have access. The University of Delaware houses Macintosh, PC, and X-terminal computer labs that are freely available to students in the EDTC program. An increasing number of EDTC students, however, are acquiring laptops to use in lieu of computers in the campus labs. Students with laptops appreciate the UD network registration infrastructure, which enables the laptop's MAC address to be registered for use on campus with the same level of network access as computers in the labs.