University Mission: Western Oregon University is a comprehensive university that creates personalized learning opportunities, supports the advancement

of knowledge for the public good and maximizes individual and professional development. Our environment is open to the exchange of ideas, where discovery, creativity and critical thinking flourish, and students succeed.

Western Oregon University Division of Teacher Education CSE 619: Big Thinkers in Educational Technology Summer Term 2012 Online This syllabus is subject to adjustment and changes at any time. Instructor: Dr. Gregory Zobel Office: ED 238 Office Hours: Wed 10-4 & By arrangement.* Phone: 503-838-8728 Email: zobelg@wou.edu

*I make every effort to be available to students. You are welcome to drop by my office if you have questions or need to talk to me. I am also happy to schedule appointments, in-person, via Skype, Google+, or Gmail Chat at mutually convenient times for you and me to meet. Communication between students and faculty is important. Please keep me informed if for some reason you are experiencing difficulties with the class and I will do my best to work with you to overcome them.

Teaching Philosophy:
Learning is one of the most exciting processes and experiences on the planet. My role is to purposefully and meaningfully guide you through a dizzying array of information, media, resources, tools, experiences, and opinions to abet your developing the skills, insights, theories, and perspectives you need to optimally employ technology to support your educational mission and goals. I also hope to help sustain and grow your passion for learning, teaching, writing, and research.

Course Description:
ED 619: Big Thinkers in Educational Technology Instructional Design (3) This seminar focuses on reading classic texts and groundbreaking recent texts in the field of technology. Readings vary by term, focusing on themes such as media and culture, emerging technologies, technology in education, etc. Students should expect to read 3-5 books each term.

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Table of Contents
Teaching Philosophy: ...................................................................................................................... 1

Course Description: ................................................................................................................. 1 About the Course ...................................................................................................................... 2 How This Course is Taught ............................................................................................................ 2 Required Texts ................................................................................................................................... 3 Course Learning Goals and Objectives ....................................................................................... 3 Course Outcomes and Course Deliverables ............................................................................. 4 About the Deliverables ................................................................................................................... 4 Course Management ................................................................................................................ 5 Technology Problems ...................................................................................................................... 5 Late Work, Family Emergencies, Illness, and Other Problems .......................................... 5 Sample Work & Assignments ........................................................................................................ 6 Assessment Methods ............................................................................................................... 6 Grading ................................................................................................................................................. 6 Online Discussions ........................................................................................................................... 6 Guidelines for a Successful Online Course ............................................................................... 6 What You Can Expect of Me as Your Instructor ...................................................................... 7 Plagiarism Policy .............................................................................................................................. 8 WOU Student Support Services Available ................................................................................. 8 Class Calendar ........................................................................................................................... 8 Assignments ............................................................................................................................... 9 Foundation: Participation .............................................................................................................. 9 Writing .................................................................................................................................................. 9 Five Blog Posts: 40% (400 points [80 points/post) ........................................................... 10 Digital Citizenship: 30% (300 points) .................................................................................... 11 Three Persuasive Letters: 30% (300 points) ....................................................................... 12 The Technology: Getting Set Up ....................................................................................... 12 Privacy ............................................................................................................................................... 12

About the Course

How This Course is Taught
This is an online course with no meetings at WOU. The course may include a variety of readings, videos, podcasts, online demonstrations, activities, assignments, and/or online discussions. Although there is some flexibility because it is an online course, students are expected to keep up with the readings and respond to discussion questions in a timely manner. Otherwise the online discussions are not effective. Please pay attention to posted deadlines.

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This course will be taught as a series of different readings introduced each week. New topics will be posted by 8:00 am each Tuesday. All initial discussion responses are due no later than Saturday evening by midnight. Responses to posts by other students are due by midnight on Monday. All other assignments are due by Monday night at midnight. You will be expected to log in to check discussions and other announcements several times each week.

Required Texts
In order to complete this course, you will need to acquire these four books. The books are available online from diverse booksellers; Amazon is used simply because it provides all the information you need to order a copy of the book. The WOU Bookstore also has copies of these books. Gleick, James: The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood Levy, Steven: In the Plex Morville & Callender: Search Patterns Vaidhyanathan, Siva: The Googlization of Everything (and why we should worry) [updated edition]

Course Learning Goals and Objectives

Learning Goals
Be familiar with key issues related to technology and educational technology.

Learning Objectives
Know key issues central to the topic and practice of search; Know key concerns in relating to information, its proliferation, and its potential impacts on education; Understand Googles power and influence in the realm of search and our ability to handle information; Know how to research, read, and respond to authors in an ethical manner; Understand how blogging differs from face-toface, forums, or micro-messaging communications; Be able to state the costs and benefits of working in a public as well as a walled environment. Write over 3,700 words in six weeks; Post in and participate in a class blog; Author a total of three persuasive and professional 3

Participate as a public intellectual in the blogosphere.

Develop writing confidence and power.

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pieces for supervisors, colleagues, and the general public. Read, review, and respond to colleagues writings in a professional and constructive manner; Practice the multi-stage drafting approach in writing blog posts and letters.

Course Outcomes and Course Deliverables

Once you have completed this course, you will have: Generated a public facing class blog which you can use for professional and/or personal goals; Participated in multiple ongoing threads and conversations; Understood the mechanics of maintaining a blog and working with multiple users on a blog; Understood the elements of contributing in an online blogging community; Authored, organized, and revised multiple posts on a theme; Produced at least 3,700 words of writing; Improved your writing, research, and revising skills so that capstone exams, theses, and projects are much more accessible and much less intimidating; Generated multiple persuasive documents that you can revise and/or submit for publication. Additionally, you will have completed the following deliverables that comprise your grade:

The Deliverables
Five Blog Posts (500 word minimum) Practice Digital Citizenship, i.e. contribute relevant online resources, comment on peers posts, and upgrade/improve the course blog weekly. Three Persuasive Letters to Supervisors, Colleagues, and the General Public 40% 30% 30%

For more specific information about each of the deliverables, please refer to the Assignment section below.

About the Deliverables

Why is there so much emphasis on writing? Writing is an essential tool for communicating. While multimedia have continued to grow in importance, virtually all policy, hiring, and funding decisions are made via alphabetic text on paper products: hard copies of writing. Writing is an important and integral tool for communicating in your future role as technological evangelist, tech-using teacher, instructional designer, or independent author, consultant, and media creator. The MS:EdIT program also requires some significant writing performances in order to complete the program. You will either write a thesis, write a final project, create an

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online portfolio that features your writing, or write comprehensive exams. No matter how you look at it, you will do a lot of writing.

Course Management

Class Assignments and Expectations; No Late Work Accepted

Complete assigned readings and explore relevant resources weekly and be prepared to actively write, post, and respond to issues raised in these readings. Simply cranking out a single draft or posting thoughts off of the top of your head is not best practice, nor will it earn you the grade that you are capable of earning. Brainstorm, draft, revise, pause, revise, and THEN post. The blog posts and comments in this class are not meant to be final drafts, but they are not meant to be first drafts either. All of your posted, public writing should be thoughtful and decently organized content that addresses the prompt and/or readings and shows respect for the reader and author. All assignments are due on the date listed. NO EXCEPTIONS. Late work is NOT accepted. Why? If you show up late for an interview a day late, if you submit your contracted publication a week late, or if you go to see the World Cup a month late you will face the same result: people will be confused, upset, or unwilling to work with you. Deadlines exist for a reason.

Technology Problems
Technology is NOT an excuse to not meet your deadlines. You should always have backup, cloud based or thumb drive or what have you. Invariably, other people around you will or should have computers. As an educational technologist in training, it is your responsibility and duty to determine multiple workarounds and solutions in case things go bad or get weird. Why? Technology always does weird stuff at some of the worst times. For example, I wrote part of this syllabus on a borrowed computer. Im storing files in Gmail and DropBox and several hard drives. I know that if the university network goes down (which it did last Sunday) that I can go to Koyotes off campus to get WiFi. Back up plans, data storage, and working devices are all important. If you literally live in the Alaskan Bush, like some of our students do, or if there is only one hard line for data in/out of your area, let me know at the start of the term. Alerting me to potential problems ahead of time makes it much easier on all of us if an event occurs.

Late Work, Family Emergencies, Illness, and Other Problems

If you think there is going to be a problem meeting a due date or deadline, please contact me immediately. Keeping me in the dark does not help either one of us. Letting me knowbriefly, efficiently, and without too many personal detailsthat your life has a few bumps will go a long way in relieving stress for all of us.

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If you have a family emergency, simply email me that with estimated date(s) and time(s) this will impact you and when you think life will become normal again. I do not need nor want doctors notes, detailed descriptions, nor epic sagas; your personal lives are your ownif there is a crisis significant enough to warrant telling me about it, all I need to know is that things are bumpy. Your attention is best spent on the situation and handling it the best that you can. The key to minimizing stress and maximizing your performance during difficult times is clear, effective communication.

Sample Work & Assignments

Examples of quality student blogs will be linked to on the course blog.

Assessment Methods
Grading
It is possible to earn 1,000 points in this class. Grades (%) A 930-1,000 A900-920 B+ 880-890 B 830-870 B800-820 C+ 780-790 C 730-770 C700-720 D 600-690 F below 600

Online Discussions
Students are expected to do scheduled readings, respond to prompts by the posted date and time, and then respond to other students and the instructor. Appropriate responses make a substantial contribution to the discussion. Do not simply reply, I like that, good job. Rather, add new ideas of your own, cite views from readings, comment on why you find a particular idea intriguing, or lead us to related articles.

Guidelines for a Successful Online Course

Modified from Palloff, R. & Pratt, K. (2007). Building Online Learning Communities: Effective Strategies for the Virtual Classroom. Jossey-Bass:San Francisco, CA. 1. This is not a self-paced course. It is designed on a weekly format and to be successful you will need to login to check the course several times each week.

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2. Discussions require frequent checking and participation. Check often. Stay current and up-to-date. Replies posted late will not become a part of the discussion and will likely be missed by other participants. Discussions cannot be caught-up once others have moved on. Monitor discussions for responses to your own posts and be prepared to post follow-up messages. 3. If possible, complete readings near the beginning of the week so that you have time to think about them and draw from them as you complete assignments and/or discussions for the week. 4. Have contingency plans for computer problems. Become familiar with the Internet services at your public library. Seek out friends or family members who will let you use their Internet services in the case yours crashes. Do not expect to be able to catch up after missing two or more weeks of class. 5. Online learning happens in real time. As with on-campus classes, you will need to juggle your commitments even when personal or work activities encroach on your study time. Your success depends upon your ability to master course content at the same time you deal with other life challenges. If an unforeseen event occurs and work cannot be submitted on time, get yourself back on track as soon as possible. Contact me immediately if you are having problems. I am understanding and will work with you, but it is difficult to help when students fall far behind. 6. Because this is an online class, your schedule can be quite flexible. This does not mean, however, that there is less work than in a 3-credit face-to-face class. Graduate courses at WOU carry an expectation of 4 hours of homework for every 1 hour in class. This equates to 15 hours/week for a 3-credit course. While this will vary from week to week and there will certainly be light weeks, please be prepared to schedule your time to manage weeks when there is a heavy workload. I will do my best to make this manageable, and I think you will find our readings and assignments to be interesting and relevant.

What You Can Expect of Me as Your Instructor

Modified from Palloff, R. & Pratt, K. (2007). Building Online Learning Communities: Effective Strategies for the Virtual Classroom. Jossey-Bass:San Francisco, CA. 1. I understand the uncertainties of online communication. When you email me, I will respond within 48 hours (usually much faster). If you send me something, I will respond with a Got it email. If you do not hear from me, check to make sure I received it. (Assignments submitted on Moodle should show you when they have been posted successfully). 2. Open communication and instructor availability are critical to the success of an online course. Email me any time you have questions. This is the fastest way to reach me. If you need to talk by phone, my number is 503-838-8728. Please email 7

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me to let me know you are trying to reach me by phone and I will arrange an appointment to talk. 3. Please email me anytime you are confused or unclear on instructions. I will respond quickly. If your question would be of interest to others in the class, I will post my responses on our course announcements page. 4. Although I may be traveling for conferences a few times during the term, I will continue to check our class regularly. If for any reason I will be unable to connect, I will post a message to let you know. 5. I will do my best to respond to assignments with feedback within a week. Because I have two other online classes, I may have conflicts that slow this down. Please know that I will do my best to provide feedback as quickly as possible.

Plagiarism Policy
Much of the work we do in this class involves using online electronic texts and images as a resource. If you use material you have found online, you are expected to acknowledge the source and, in the case of text, paraphrase as appropriate. If you use another writers words, you must put those words in quotation marks (or use block quote formatting) and formally cite where they came from. If you cut and paste text or any other material without crediting your source, you are plagiarizing. Plagiarism is unethical. If discovered, intentional plagiarists fail.

WOU Student Support Services Available

Disability Accommodation: If you have a documented disability that my require assistance, you will need to contact the Office of Disabilities Services (ODS) for coordination in your academic accommodations. The ODS is located in the Academic Programs and support Center (APSC) Suite 405. The phone/TTY is (503) 838-8250 Writing Center (www.wou.edu/las/humanities/writingctr) Learning Resource Center (www.wou.edu/provost/aalc/learning) Counseling Center (http://www.wou.edu/student/health) Department or College Resources

Class Calendar
Weeks run from Tuesdays (6/26) through the next Monday (7/2).
Please note: initial blog posts are always due by Midnight Saturday (6/30) while follow up comments are always due by Midnight Monday (7/2). This means that your posts may be a little bit behind what you are reading; i.e. when you post in Week 2 (Saturday 7/7), you may have only completed the reading for Week 1 and part of the reading for Week 2.

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Week
1 6/26 7/2 2 7/3 7/9 3 7/10 7/16 4 7/17 7/23 5 7/24 7/30 6 8/1 8/6

Reading
Search Patterns: preface 80 (Ch. 3) The Information: 3 124 (Prologue through Ch. 4) {circa 200 pages} Search Patterns: 81 172 (Ch. 4 end) The Information: 125 309 (Ch. 5 through Ch. 10) {circa 270 pages} The Information: 310 426 (Ch. 11 Epilogue) {circa 115 pages} Googlization: 1 148 (Intro through Ch. 4) {circa 150 pages} Googlization : 149 210 (finish the book) In the Plex: 1 120 (Prologue through Part 2) {circa 180 pages} In the Plex: Complete as much of the test as you can {circa 200 pages}

Assignments Due Dates

6/30 Introduction 6/30 Blog post 1 7/7 Blog post 2 7/14 Blog post 3 7/21 Blog post 4 7/28 Blog post 5 8/3 Blog post 6 8/6 Three persuasive letter

Remember: Digital Citizenship should be practiced regularly. Whether you do bursts of four hours at once or several times a week for 30 minutes, you need to participate and contribute in a meaningful way each week.

Assignments
Foundation: Participation
In order to earn a grade in the course, you must post a 300-500 word introduction by July 1st, 2012. Failure to post an introduction will result in an F for the course. We are a learning community, and we need to know something about you and each other.

Writing
Key to all the writing assignments is several simple principles. Simple does not mean easy. Simple does not mean stupid. Simple does not mean you should dismiss it. (Hint: A rapid way to improve your writing is to acquire and read Rudolf Fleschs The Art of Readable Writing, Fleschs The Art of Plain Talk, or Kelsch & Kelschs Writing Effectively: A Practical Guide.) 1. Respect your reader. a. Use accessible academic English and clear writing. b. Assume they are intelligent, inquisitive, and critical thinkers like you. c. Be engaging, i.e. do not bore us. 2. Support your claims. a. Respect your reader by showing roughly where the information came from.

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b. Respect your reader by summarizing the work for themdont make the reader work through the quotes that you should work through. 3. Have something to say. Make a point and connect the dots. a. All of this content is interesting, and it all addresses multiple issues in which most of the public is concerned and invested. This is an easy conversation to join, and it is a conversation to which you can make a valuable contribution. This means thinking and drafting before you writebe very clear about what you want to say. Say it well when you say it. Make a point, and then move on to your next point. Before you close, remember to connect all of the dots. Do not assume your reader will get it just because it seems obvious to you. Instead, your post, your writing, your argument should make the point so obvious that the reader is led to it.

Five Blog Posts: 40% (400 points [80 points/post])

Over the six weeks that we read four books, you will author five blog posts. The five posts will be reflective posts that directly connect what you are reading to your own professional life and development. All blog posts should fit within the framework of one or several of these questions: What new did you learn? How does this match or challenge what you already understand? How persuasive was the argument? How will this change how you think about what you learned? How will this change how you act or what you do on the job? How will this change you how you teach your students? How does this impact your pedagogy? How does this impact your philosophy of teaching? How does this impact your philosophy of teaching with technology? These questions should serve as prompts for you for the entire term. You can address the same question each week or a new question each weekthe choice is yours. Just make sure that your work is thoughtful and connects the readings to your teaching, thinking, and professional lives. Your posts will be on our class blog. Each blog post should: Be at least 500 words long; three of your five posts may be in the form of a screencast, video, PowerPoint, or audio that is between 3-5 minutes long. Summarize at least 3 of the authors ideas or statements. When you summarize, indicate where youre pulling that from in the authors work. Yes, this is almost like citing. Why are we doing it? If you make claims but do not have the evidence, your argument becomes rubble. Instead, by indicating in advance where the ideas come from (Chapter 2; page 25; etc.) you show that you have done your work. The reader can go to her own copy and confirm what you wrote. Note: a summary is NOT a quote. Do not quote unless absolutely necessary; if you do quote, make sure it is under 30 words. The point of blogging and reading blogs is not just reading what experts say but to read what other people think about those experts. Similarly, in the academic world, over use of quotes 10

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demonstrates a reliance upon experts and implies the author has not taken the time to digest and synthesize the ideasinstead, the writer expects you, the reader, to do that. Employ proper, near-academic English. Yes, you may be a bit informal. Yes, you can use sentence fragments in a very limited way. And yes, you can be playful or use humor. However, these posts should not be first drafts. First drafts are rough, clunky, and often lack evidence. They skip around. Theyre tedious to read. They often show little respect for the reader. Respect your reader (and your faculty is not your only reader.) Written organization: well-constructed argument, smooth transitions, good structure. The post is properly tagged with Week 1, Week 2, etc.

In short, I am looking for clear evidence that you are thinking through issues raised by the author, implications of the author's discussion socially and educationally, and how significant those impacts are. I also want to see you cite or refer to evidence; while APA style is not required, proper citing will make writing your paper later much easier. The course runs six weeks, but no blog posts will be accepted after August 5th, 2012.

Digital Citizenship: 30% (300 points)

Our class and our course blog is an online community. Our goal is to learn, develop, and become more informed and educated educators, teachers, students, and citizens. Learning is a social activity: we rely upon the knowledge, experience, teachings, and research of others. Learning on our own is impossible without others. Thriving, not merely surviving, in graduate school is much easier to do when you work, help, and collaborate with others. You can share resources, insights, expectations, experiences, and concepts. To demonstrate digital citizenship in this class, do the following things: Give constructive, meaningful, and thoughtful feedback to several peers and their writings each week; Share resources (articles, videos, audio, images, links, etc.) with your peers on the blog. These resources should supplement and inform our readings on search, information, and Google. Please keep copyright issues clearly in mind when you share/cite. This means not just posting an image or video, but providing some context and discussion of why and how it is important and relevant in an academic manner. Also, be sure that you indicate the author as well as provide a link to the original source. Help improve the course blog. You can add widgets and plugins to improve the blog. Before you make changes, consider posting about potential changes so that the community can give you feedback.

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Three Persuasive Letters: 30% (300 points)

You will compose three persuasive letters or editorials. These three documents must meet the following criteria: Clearly address a specific audience (specific employer, boss, or supervisor; a specific population of colleagues, i.e. people with whom you work; the general public [select a specific newspaper, magazine, or website where you would submit this piece]); Be written in a voice appropriate to that audience; Be written in a persuasive manner; Be written in a professional and grammatically correct manner; Offer an orderly and convincing argument; Use ethos, pathos, and logos effectively; Address one or several topics raised in the readings this term; Be relevant to the audience/reader, i.e. the material must be directly connected to a real-life issue which concerns them; Be 400-800 words long. Letters should be submitted to me directly via email. If you would like to write and submit letters before the due date, i.e. earlier in the term, you may do so. Simply contact me and we can

The Technology: Getting Set Up

In it is critical to your success that you become familiar with the course blog during the first week of class. If you prepare, most things will likely go smoothly. If you do not prepare, if you assume, then you risk doom.

Privacy
All of our activities online are tracked, searched, documented, recorded, and harvested. It is important to understand that tracking occurs. As Educational Technologists, this is the reality we faceand we work in environments where numerous vested and anonymous parties harvest data. Since all of your blogs and digital citizenship activities must be posted to the course blog for this class, I attempt to mitigate the impact of this tracking on our professional lives. To protect your identities, you, students/users, are only referred to by your first names. If you wish to use your last name, that is your choice. However, I will not enforce such a policy. If you have further concerns about your privacy or privacy related issues, please let me know.

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