Certificate Program Changes
It has been a year of change for the Certificate program at Michigan State. Our first big change was getting approval to offer the Educational Technology Endorsement in September. Since offering this new endorsement, Michigan’s Dept of Education has made some changes to all endorsements that has affected how we offer ours. Please read the article under College News for more details on these changes.
Another big change that ocurred was the updating of both the Certificate and Master’s websites. Both have a new look and added content to make it easier for educators to navigate. We are continuing to make updates and changes to keep the website fresh and full of the latest information.
Our next big change was to put the Certificate classes online. Kathryn Dirkin, a graduate of the Master’s program and a PhD student, worked with a team to put both the 1st year and 2nd year classes online. Our first online class was offered successfully in January and we are finishing up the third class in the series. The feedback we received regarding these courses has been very positive. Ana Urian, a student in CEP 812, said:
“This course is incredible! I certainly made the right decision to take ed. tech. courses for my prof. renewal. I cannot believe the amount of synapses that are connecting in my brain! I can even feel them at this point!”
While developing the online courses we made a few changes to our curriculum that we will be launching in our face to face classes this fall. We have added a large component of Web 2.0 technologies and web-based collaboration tools. Teachers will learn about how to create a blog, how to edit a wiki and how to create a podcast along with learning about other web-based collaboration tools such as Google Apps and Zoho.
In another big change we will be moving all of our courses over to the Angel course management system. We will continue to utilize our own portfolio and calendar system but they will now be integrated into Angel. Michigan State University just finished successfully upgrading Angel to the newest version providing our courses with an up-to-date course management system.
As the 2006-2007 school year comes to a close, I am amazed at the amount of changes that have ocurred in our program. As technology keeps changing and evolving so must our program. We are committed to offering the best courses in the field of educational technology and will work hard to keep our program fresh and relevant to all educators. If you haven’t signed up for our program yet, this is a great time to check us out.
–Carrie Albin, Outreach Coordinator and Co-Editor