Help with Ed Tech course

I am co-teaching a course in educational technology this spring and would love some suggestions.

The context: 35 students. About two thirds teach at High Tech High schools and the rest teach at other schools in San Diego. 2 are taking the course online from the Bay Area. These students are getting their preliminary teaching credential in all manner of subjects while teaching (mostly) full time in a classroom. The students are kind-of first year teachers, but many have experiences as college instructors, as private school teachers, or in other educational roles. The class is in March and is 4 sessions of 3 hours each. I co-taught a 9 week long methods course to this cohort of students in the fall.

Some givens: We will ask the students for feedback on what they are interested in learning. We will have opportunities for student choice.

Please reply with comments around the following topics, or anything else.

1. Exemplars. If you have seen great syllabi, class websites, or student work-products that are great models, please point me in that direction. The funny and smart Matt Dunleavy from Radford University shared his syllabus with me. Others?

2. Goals. Ed schools are often critiqued for being all about abstract theories and for not providing teachers with practical advice for their classroom. At the High Tech High Graduate School of Education, we aim to strike the right balance of the how and the why. "Put-it-to-practice," coined by Melissa Daniels, is a strategy we often use where the "homework" for the course is to try something out in your classroom and report back on how it went. I know that many teachers are always eager for the "how," something "that helps me in my classroom tomorrow," so that is certainly a goal. I also think that there is something to the idea of exploring the "why," as in what arguments are educational technologists making about the nature of teaching and learning and how might technology help us transform our understanding of this? This is quite fuzzy for me, so suggestions about goals are appreciated.

3. Readings. Any books or articles you think would be particularly useful for our students?

4. Activities/tools. Any particular tools or activities that you think would be essential to "cover?" For example, I am thinking about having students make a short stop animation film so that they might then have their own students make their own films. This seems like an intriguing student product in which students can really explain their thinking. I need to make my own first to see how do-able this is and how long it would take.

All thoughts appreciated!

cross posted at http://blogs.hightechhigh.org/bendaley/2011/01/20/help/