ED 810: Examines curriculum, instructional design and learning technologies. Focuses on technologies for teaching, learning, collaboration and assessment. Identifies legislation, theory and best practices associated with technology-based instruction and information. Provides critical appraisal of independent technology-based learning products and workforce development systems in many settings, such as K-12 education, corporations and higher education.

Purposes:

ED 810 is a graduate seminar for doctoral candidates who are interested in both curriculum and learning technologies.

Two groups of doctoral students come together here. There are students whose primary interest is technology and instructional design and others whose passion is first directed at language and literacy curriculum. It is my hope that the "technology people" will learn more about curriculum and literacy, and that "literacy people" will see the possibilities that technology, instructional design and knowledge management bring to the table.

All are welcome, as long as you consider yourself fascinated with learning environments and products, and eager to contribute to the development of more effective learning and workforce development opportunities and organizations. Technology and systematic approaches to design and development are the ways we accomplish these larger purposes.

The curriculum for schools, community colleges, hospitals, museums, and corporate education centers can be a battlefield. Sometimes the battle is about what we should be teaching, as in the debates about the content of general education in higher education, and generative vs. basic skills in elementary and secondary schools. Sometimes, on the other hand, the battle is about how we should be conducting education, manifested in arguments regarding technology-based learning, knowledge management, family roles, learner centered-ness, testing, problem-based learning, distance education and the commercialization of K-12 and higher education.

Thus you can tell from picking up any newspaper, many hold opinions about education ends and means. As leaders in education, we must be fluent about these topics that are at the heart of curriculum and technology.

In ED 810 we will subscribe to a "big tent view of education," recognizing that educators in zoos, schools, hospitals, museums, universities, corporations, non profits and government agencies are brought together by shared pressures, concerns, strategies. passions and possibilities. The public is demanding more of its schools and universities, noting that public K-12 is priced at $373+ billion dollars per year, with higher education in the USA tipping the scales at $247+ billion. The same kind of focus is on corporate and government training enterprises, where $70+ billion dollars is questioned. What is its effect on performance? Governor Schwartzenegger raises questions about our investments in education and their outcomes. President Bush touts both technology and assessment.

Our purpose here is to tour the terrain and to critically explore both the hype and hope.