Computer Use in Education

This course explores the different ways that technology can be used to support learning, understanding, and inclusion in the classroom or in other types of learning environments. The activities in the course pays special attention to the role that future educators play as facilitator and intentional designer of materials and of the environment to engage in intentional, inclusive, and just teaching with technology.

The course explores the following essential question:

What does it look like to engage in intentional, inclusive, and just teaching with technology?

While exploring the essential question, the course is guided by the following throughlines and values to help students understand how to provide intentional, inclusive, and just learning experiences with technology.

• Plan an Intentional Curriculum

  

  • Offer Windows

    Curriculum lends opportunities for all students to see and experience new ideas, perspectives, identities, and ways of being in the world.

  • Provide Mirrors

    Learning experiences should provide opportunities for all students to see themselves in what is being taught and explored in the curriculum.

• Facilitate Inclusive Cultural Practices

  

  • Commit to a Culturally Relevant Curriculum

    A culturally relevant curriculum links to Windows and Mirrors and also recognizes the different ways in which students of a range of identities, community memberships, and abilities interact with information.

  • Overcome Stereotypes

    Teachers must understand their students for who they are not based on stereotypes or prior experiences with students claiming the same identities or community membership and help their students to do the same.

  • Honor Home Languages

    Teachers must recognize home languages are assets and important aspects of diversity in learning. Language not only helps us communicate with each other, but also helps us to interact with the world around us.

• Engage in Just Technology Use

  

  • Facilitate Sharing, Communicating, and Deep Inquiry

    Technology can provide students with the opportunity to share what they understand and investigate topics deeply. Teachers need to structure technology use so these opportunities are available for all students.

  • Foster Empowering Knowledge and Contributing to the Classroom and Society

    Teachers must structure technology use so that students are empowered to make use of the knowledge they bring while working to contribute to the classroom and society as a whole.

The following enduring understandings guides the course, and provides a unit-based structure: