Course Description | Syllabus | Instructor | Sample Activities


"The interactions between students in topics posted on the discussion board were lively and thought provoking. I thoroughly enjoyed every aspect of this class and consider it perhaps the best class I have taken at U of I so far, and they all have been very good." (CTER student, 2002)

Course Description

This is a special section of a course devoted to exploring the social, ethical, and policy dimensions of new technology use in schools. Computers, the Internet, and other multimedia technologies introduce new challenges in thinking about the consequences of technology uses for the learning opportunities and outcomes of students. This course will explore such critical themes as access and equity issues, censorship, privacy, commercialization, new forms of literacy, online communication, and developing a "global community" through the Internet.

The class emphasizes reading and discussion through both synchronous and asynchronous forums. A series of synchronous lecture/chat sessions as a group each week will be held via Elluminate (on Tuesdays from 7:00 to 9:00 pm during Summer 2008). For more information about Elluminate, look in the CTER tutorials. However, most of the interactions will take place asynchronously. The lectures will supplement, not substitute for, the readings and discussions. The readings are not overwhelming in volume, but they do bear close and careful reading, and sometimes rereading.

Syllabus

This course is organized around seven themes, each comprising a two-week unit within the course:

- Unit One: Access

- Unit Two: Credibility,Critique, Web Evaluation

- Unit Three: Free Speech, Censorship

- Unit Four: Privacy

- Unit Five: Commercialization

- Unit Six: Intellectual Property, Plagiarism

- Unit Seven: Hacking, Computer Crime

Each of these issues is of tremendous importance to society generally, but especially for our purposes, to schools. Each of them generates real controversies, and radically different opposing perspectives. Each, we believe, also poses some deep challenges to conventional understandings and practices in schools: issues concerning curriculum content, privacy, student and teacher rights, and so on. Furthermore, as the semester goes along, you will see more and more interconnections amongst these issues.

Instructor

Nick Burbules (Email: burbules@uiuc.edu)

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Sample Activities

Course resources will include readings from the web, mini-lectures from the course instructors and guest lectures (about 15-20 minutes each, available via streamed audio from the course web site), asynchronous class discussions via WebBoard, and syncronous sessions via Elluminate. Assigned readings, however, should be seen as just the starting point for your studies. In every topic area we have suggested additional materials in the course bibliography, and loads of additional material can be accessed through web searches. This is especially true for resources in your small group project area: You will need to conduct a thorough search of web materials over and above class assignments as primary resources for your team project. There are no assigned readings or texts apart from the web-based materials. That approach seems most consistent with the other goals of this course.