Integrating Technology through Online Publishing
A Proposal for the 2003 SITE Conference
Albuquerque, NM
Paul D. Alley, AZ K-12 Center
Elizabeth Willis, Ph.D. Northern Arizona University
Greg Sherman, Ph.D., AZ K-12 Center
J. Michael Blocher, Ph.D., Northern ArizonaUniversity
The College of Education, at Northern Arizona University (NAU), in conjunction with a PT3 grant and the Arizona K-12 Center, has produced an electronic journal with a student publications component, open to faculty nationwide, yet targeted at students and faculty of NAU’s College of Education. This presentation will provide participants with the opportunity to review the latest volume of our online journal, and learn about the unique mission of NAU’s Online Masters of Education in Educational Technology (M.Ed.).
Participants in this session will gain an understanding of how the online journal was developed to provide a venue for pre-service teachers, cooperating teachers, in-service teachers, and College of Education faculty to publish and share their learning experiences as they continue to develop their teaching practice. Participants will also be able to read the latest articles and discuss the design and development of this publication. Furthermore, interested participants will meet with the Educational Technology faculty, students, and specialists who developed the online journal and how it relates to the online M.Ed. degree program. Discussion will include the distinctive components that were incorporated in the development of an online journal that helped participants of their education community share papers, anecdotes, lesson plans, and stories of success and challenge.
Background:
NorthernArizonaUniversity has a unique role in that its mission is to provide educational opportunities to rural and underserved populations within the state. For example, many of our students are located in vastly remote areas, and access to course work is often delivered to remote sites via Instructional TV courses, Web-based courses or even site based. This presents challenges for cooperating teachers trying to integrate technology where support and training can often be limited. To address these issues, the M.Ed. in Ed. Tech. was designed and developed for in-service teachers. The support of the PT3 grant has fostered the building of an educational community through the development of an academic publishing outlet where all of the various participants can share their ideas with one another. Community building is seen as a vital component in successful endeavors of this nature. Therefore, the most significant aspect of the online journal is that it provides an instrument where all of our participants feel ownership as they build community by getting ideas from others while they share experiences of their own in the celebration of their published work. It has proved to be a valuable asset to the students and faculty in our M.Ed. program and NAU’s College of Education.
Significance:
The recent proliferation of online journals in higher education presents many opportunities for faculty to publish and disseminate their research findings. Online journals offer several advantages over traditional, paper journals such as: ease of group collaboration, greater efficiency in the submission and review processes, and open-ended dissemination via the Internet. While university and K-12 faculty have embraced online journaling as a means to communicate and disseminate valuable information, undergraduate and graduate education students often complete their studies without ever being exposed to the benefits and processes of journal publishing.
By developing a local online journal with a moderated student publishing area, then integrating the submission of articles into the curriculum of university education courses, students will gain exposure to online publishing as a means of sharing course projects, professional and student experiences, and educational research findings. As technology integration modeling is increasingly encouraged in university classrooms, faculty in non-technology related courses are challenged in incorporating technology into their curriculum. Providing an online venue for student publications allows ‘non-tech’ faculty to encourage and model the use of classroom technology without drastic modifications to existing curriculum; thus enabling them to use the journal as an instructional tool. In addition, students will gain valuable real-world publishing and writing skills as their articles will be presented in conjunction with those submitted by practicing education professionals.
The electronic journal can be incorporated into university classrooms, and serves as a model for K-12 classrooms as well. Due to its electronic nature, the level of incorporation within a class or program is highly flexible. Instructors are able to offer extra credit to students who successfully publish content in the journal. With retrievable content, entire classes are able use the journal as a group collaboration tool where individuals or groups can submit and review each other’s content. As a motivational tool, faculty can choose to publish the top papers or projects from a given classroom activity. This inherent flexibility allows faculty to incorporate technology-related activities into existing assignments and curriculum; students can receive credit for e-publishing, not just handing something in.
An electronic submission and review process is important for modeling the use of technology, and ensuring that students, and faculty, are gaining crucial technology skills. In the process of submitting assignments and artifacts, non-tech faculty and students often overlook the many benefits of electronic submission formats such as email, ftp, or web-based forms. From an administrative standpoint, electronic artifact submission allows instructors to automatically track and organize student assignments. Instructionally, formative evaluations of student artifacts are more immediate and flexible in a collaborative electronic environment; instructors’ feedback is immediate while ongoing improvements to student artifacts are easier, and timelier.