Greetings Educators,

Welcome to our regular subscribers and a special welcome to our newest members in Dubai. Many of you may already know that MSU is opening a new campus in Dubai with classes starting this fall. And, yes, this will be a regular physical campus with a building, student housing, faculty housing and all the newest amenities. There are currently four undergraduate and four graduate programs slated to begin this fall. The Educational Technology Certificate and Masters Programs will be one of the first offered. You can see the list and complete information about MSU Dubai at http://dubai.msu.edu/ . This new campus will be serving the Emirates of Dubai as well as the larger United Arab Emirates and the Gulf Region.

As the audience for our program, and thus our newsletter, is growing and crossing many geographical boundaries let me begin this newsletter by first describing our program. Many long time readers are well acquainted with our programs and, for those readers, this will serve as a refresher. For our newest readers, this will be an excellent opportunity for you to learn about what we do and how our programs can benefit you and your schools.

The Educational Technology Certificate Program is a 3 course 9 credit graduate program offered in a format that is easy for teachers to attend and provides them with the knowledge and skills necessary to successfully integrate computer technology into their classrooms and teaching. This program is designed to prepare and teach in-service K-12 teachers and administrators how to both use and teach with computer technology. The emphasis is on enabling teachers to change their practice of teaching in positive ways. To do so, teachers learn new instructional and pedagogical strategies and learn ways that technology can enhance and support the learning process. Participants have the opportunity to improve their own skills in the use of technology, including Web 2.0 technologies, foster learning with technology, and develop approaches for teaching others using technology.

For the past 12 years the College of Education has offered this graduate program resulting in the receipt of an Educational Technology Certificate. Credits from the certificate program can then be applied toward the Master of Arts degree in Educational Technology. To accommodate teachers’ busy schedules, MSU will be offering this program in local schools in Dubai, as we do in Michigan, on evenings and weekends. Courses will start in Dubai immediately after Ramadan in the beginning of October. For those not familiar with the dates for Ramadan this year, it begins on September 1^st and ends on September 30^th. The entire program can be completed in just nine months. To date, more than 2,000 teachers and administrators have completed the program in Michigan.

The aim of the certificate program is not only to help individuals gain skills in using the hardware and software generally available in their institutions, but to help them use it in ways that result in observable gains in student learning. All course assignments require teachers to create authentic work that is appropriate to their discipline and that can be immediately integrated into their classroom to improve student achievement.

Our model for offering this program has been established on a long history of outreach. Rather than ask teachers to come to a campus, be that in Michigan or in Dubai, we establish relationships with local schools where the classes are offered in their buildings, using their computer labs, making it more convenient for teachers. Typically teachers within that building are the first to enroll and, if later there are seats open, we allow teachers from surrounding schools to attend. We also are very willing to pay whatever costs are associated with using the school facilities.

Watch for the next issue of the newsletter and we will share with you some facts and figures about Dubai and some of our experiences both traveling and working there in our new Dubai News column.

If you would like to learn more about the Educational Technology Certificate or Masters program, either in Dubai or in Michigan, please email me at: Dr. Joe Codde, joecodde@msu.edu. Or in Dubai contact Dr. Brendan Mullan at 971 4 375 5212, Email dubai@msu.edu.

Source: U.S. State Department Web Site: www.state.gov/p/nea/ci/c2422.htm

The end of the school year is in sight and the last thing you are probably thinking of is signing up for summer classes to continue your professional development in the area of educational technology. Yet the deadline for our summer classes is this Friday, June 5th so if you are considering signing up you’ll need to do so by Friday.

We have several options available this summer. First you can take our summer accelerated classes in Traverse City, East Lansing or at the Kalamazoo RESA. The Traverse City courses are Monday - Friday for just 4 weeks and the KRESA and East Lansing classes are Monday - Thursday for 5 weeks. You can earn 9 graduate credits by taking one of these summer accelerated options.

We also have weekend classes being offered in Birmingham and Durand. The 810 course has already been offered but participants can take 811 or 812 in this weekend format.

Last but not least we have our online summer series beginning June 16th. You can take both 810 and 811 during the summer for a total of 6 graduate credits. You can finish up 812 in the fall or spring semester depending on what works best for your schedule.

If your summer is already booked and you are unable to take classes until the fall you may want to check out our fall lineup of classes at http://edutech.msu.edu/timeslocation.asp. We have classes scheduled for Birmingham, Durand, Pinckney, Traverse City and Wayne RESA.

We are always looking for new site locations. If you don’t see a location that will work for you and are interested in getting the courses offered right in your own district you can complete our Suggest a Location form at http://edutech.msu.edu/suggestalocation.asp.

We wish you a very relaxing and much deserved summer vacation.

We are always excited to hear when past and current students in our program have been recognized for their accomplishments. This quarter we have several former and current students that we would like to recognize.

First Chad Casciani, 2007 graduate of the Master’s in Educational Technology program in Plymouth, England, was awarded the 2009 District Teacher of the Year by DoDDS Korea. To read more about the award and Chad’s accomplishments you can visit Teacher of the Year announcement.

In addition several of our former Certificate and/or Masters students were recent finalist in the Walter P. Chrysler “Closing the Technology Gap in Education” awards. They include Erik Cliff, Mary Lou Krause, Linda Mondol, Merdee Vaughan, Barbara Morely and Emily Parker Pohlonski. The awards, sponsored by The Chrysler Foundation in partnership with the Detroit Science Center, go to public school educators who have taken extra steps to stimulate students in the areas of science, technology, engineering and math to pursue careers in technical and scientific fields. To read more about the awards you can visit Chrysler Foundation Awards.

Congratulations to all of you for your hard work and dedication to the teaching profession. We are happy to see your hard work paying off.

If you are a current or former student to our program and have recently been recognized for your accomplishments we would love to hear about it and feature you in an upcoming issue. Contact us at edutech@msu.edu.

Have you wanted to find a way to share PowerPoint presentations with others and have them comment on them? Perhaps you would like students in your class to be able to upload their presentations to receive feedback from others in their class or outside of the classroom.

Well VoiceThread can help you do that. According to the VoiceThread site, “A VoiceThread is an online media album that can hold essentially any type of media (images, documents and videos) and allows people to make comments in 5 different ways - using voice (with a microphone or telephone), text, audio file, or video (with a webcam) - and share them with anyone they wish. They can even be exported to an Archival Movie for offline use on a DVD or video-enabled MP3 player. A VoiceThread allows group conversations to be collected and shared in one place, from anywhere in the world.”

If you are concerned about privacy and only want your VoiceThreads available to the students in your class you can make your VoiceThreads private. Only those that you invite to view your VoiceThread will be able to see it and comment on it.

VoiceThread offers free accounts for K-12 educators. You just need to register by clicking on the Sign In or Register link in the upper right hand corner. After signing up for a new account you then need to click on the Go Pro! button at the upper right hand side of the screen. In the next window click on the link at the bottom that says K-12 classroom educators. You will then need to provide more information regarding your classroom and you will need to register your school email address. (This is the email address you have been given by your school). They will send you a verification email to this address so you will need to be able to access it.

VoiceThread has a special edition of their web-based application for educators called Ed.VoiceThread. Unfortunately this version is not free and will set you back $60/year to register your classroom. There is also a school version that costs $300 plus $1 per user per year.

To learn more about how VoiceThread works you can view this VoiceThread.

To learn more about how VoiceThread may be used in education you can visit http://voicethread.com/#q.b3352.i28616 and see VoiceThread at work.

Web 2.0 has brought about many wonderful free web-based tools that have been very useful in classroom instruction. I would like to highlight two new tools that are available for teachers to use as learning management systems for their classes. Both of these tools are web-based and are free to use.

The first tool is Google Sites, another great web-based application offered by Google. Google Sites allows you to create a website without any HTML knowledge. However unlike Google Pages (also a free way to create your own website) you can incorporate all types of additional web-based applications into your pages such as RSS feeds, file sharing, announcements, calendars, and much more. You will need a Google account to use this application but signing up for one is free and easy. To learn more about Google Sites you can watch this 3 minute video tutorial. About one minute into the video they describe how a teacher might use this application.

The second learning management system that is available for teachers to use for free is Edu 2.0. This web-based application tool was specifically made for teachers and students. It provides you with all the necessary requirements to put your course online such as an electronic gradebook, assignment drop box, attendance tracker, quizzes, and so much more. Best of all you can make your course private so only your students can access the course site. It is free and easy to sign up. To learn more you can watch this short 3 minute video.

As always, we would love to hear from you if you try out these sites in your classes.  Leave a comment below and tell us about your experience.

Web Sites Worth Visiting

Website	Description and Educational Applications
http://terraclues.com/	TerraClues is a puzzle game where the objective is to find locations on the world map by solving a set of clues. Each time you solve a clue, the next clue will be unlocked until all clues have been solved. (Submitted by Certificate student Jennifer Allen)
http://www.diigo.com	Diigo is two services in one — it is a research and collaborative research tool on the one hand, and a knowledge-sharing community and social content site on the other. It is like del.icio.us meets Ning. (Submitted by Leigh Graves Wolf, Program Coordinator of the Master’s program)
http://www.shodor.org/ interactivate/	Interactivate is a set of free, online courseware for exploration in science and mathematics. It is comprised of activities, lessons, and discussions.
http://webtools4u2use. wikispaces.com/	Web Tools 4 U 2 Use wiki is for school library media specialists and other educators to learn about cool new web tools, see how they can be used in school library media programs, and share ideas & success stories.
https://www.photoshop.com/express	Adobe is now offering a free web=-based version of Photoshop called Photoshop Express. Upload, sort, polish, and store up to 2GB of photos. All for free. Resize, tint, distort, and more. (Submitted by Certificate student Joel Flint)

*K-12 classroom teachers themselves who have experience using educational technology in the classroom

*Graduates from our certificate program

*Exceptionally skilled in educational technology

*Winners of awards such as technology Teacher of the Year from the Michigan Association of Computer-Related Technology Users in Learning (MACUL) and the national award of the International Society for Technology in Education

This quarter’s instructor spotlight is . . .

Eric Spicer, Instructor for the MSU Educational Technology Certificate Program, Technology Teacher at Latson Elementary School in Howell, MI

Eric Spicer is currently the technology teacher at Latson Elementary School in Howell, Michigan. His job includes teaching students in grades kindergarten through 5th , technology skills where he believes that his passion for technology, combined with his teaching skills will allow his students to work better together in groups to solve real-world problems and present them to real audiences.

Prior to teaching in Howell, Eric was a technology teacher at Belding Middle school in Belding, Michigan where he taught 6th through 8th graders technology. He also has experience teaching adult and community education technology classes in both Howell and Belding.

Eric received his bachelor’s degree from Michigan State University in Child Development and Elementary Education. After the completion of his bachelors he continued on to get his Master’s Degree in Educational Technology from Michigan State University.

Eric lives in East Lansing with his wife, Jodi, and their two sons - Cameron, 8, and Kailer, 4. In his spare time, Eric enjoys spending time on the links, playing baseball and soccer with his boys, and enjoying the pool at the Michigan Athletic Club!

Question: In last quarter’s issue you described a program that helps eliminate paper waste from printing pages off the web. Is there a similar program that allows you to take sections from different websites and put them all onto one page for printing? I often find a paragraph or two of information from a website and instead of printing the entire page would like to just print and/or save the paragraphs that I’m interested in.

Answer: Just recently the Program Coordinator for the Master’s program, Leigh Graves Wolf, passed along a great new tool created by Hewlett Packard. It is a free Internet application that you download and use right in your browser. According to HP, “HP Smart Web Printing lets you select, store and organize text and graphics from multiple web pages and then edit and print exactly what you see onscreen. It gives you the control you need to print meaningful information while minimizing waste.”

The other great feature of this tool is that you can clip information from many different websites and store them all in one document and save it as a PDF file that you can send to your friends or colleagues.

One drawback that I found is that it only works with web pages and not on PDF files. I even tried using the View PDF as HTML feature in Firefox to see if I might be able to use this tool to clip information from the PDF file but it didn’t work.

Visit HP Smart Web Printing to watch a video demonstration on how the tool works and to get your free download.

If you end up using this tool we would love to hear about it. Leave a comment below to tell us about your experience.

CEP 810 to be offered in Dubai starting October 2008

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