The Illinois Community College Board, Illinois Board of Higher Education, and the Illinois State Board of Education have formed the Illinois Consortium for Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers to Use Technology. The Consortium has been awarded a PT3 Grant from the United States Department of Education. The grant is designed to prepare pre-service teachers to understand how to use technology to enhance learning.
The consortium proposed accomplishing this goal by incorporating technology into the general curriculum through the "Preparing Technology Proficient Educators in Illinois" project. As stated in the 1999 report of the Milken Exchange on Education Technology,
Education reformers have long noted that teachers teach as they were taught. If we want to encourage the use of technology as a tool for learning and problem solving, it makes sense that we would want teachers to model this activity for students at all levels and in all contexts.
The grant provided funds to establish four curriculum design teams composed primarily of faculty from partnership institutions. In Phase 1, each team was charged with redesigning one of four core curriculum areas: (1) communications, (2) humanities, (3) math, and (4) science.
Phase 2 consisted of implementing each team's redesigned, technology-infused model curriculum at each team's appropriate partnership institutions. During the next phase, all four redesigned curriculums were made available at all partnership institutions and at other higher education institutions in Illinois. Work developed through the initial steps of the project can be accessed at www.iccb.org/pt3.
A second major thrust of the grant involved developing a "Student Site" housing technology-infused teaching resources for college sophomore teaching candidates. The "Student Site" may be accessed at www.iccb.org/student.
The "PT3 Web-Mentoring Site" is the final piece for the grant. The anticipated audience for this site is the first year teacher in need of mentoring as it pertains to the use of technology in the classroom. The site will also be used by those mentoring the first year teachers.
Information about the work of PT3 projects nationwide may be found at www.pt3.org.
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