Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers to Use Technology (PT3) is an initiative funded by the United States Department of Education. As the name implies, the mission of the grant program is to prepare future K-12 teachers to be proficient at integrating technology into sound teaching.

The St. Louis Consortium PT3 grant is based out of the undergraduate teacher preparation program at the UM-St. Louis College of Education. Our goal is to graduate teachers who are prepared to effectively use technology in constructivist teaching and learning environments. We believe the best means of reaching this goal is twofold: university faculty modeling effective use of technology in on-campus instruction, and students gaining a variety of field experiences in technology-rich classrooms in K-12 schools. By combining a faculty member's teaching and content area expertise with expertise about how to use technology, we can reach these goals.

The grant is designed to take advantage of the opportunities presented by the E. Desmond Lee Technology and Learning Center and to coincide with the implementation of a new teacher education curriculum. Each semester, we recruit a new group of five full-time and five adjunct faculty to participate in these efforts. We hold planning and sharing meetings, small workshops, and individualized training as needed, as well as supporting faculty efforts to integrate technology before, during, and after class. We support each cadre for two semesters.

We collaborate with six K-12 districts in the St. Louis area. The technology-enriched classrooms in these schools provide us with observation and practice teaching sites. Some of the teachers from these classrooms join us at our PT3 meetings to discuss the realities of teaching in a constructivist, technology-rich environment.

In this time frame we believe that faculty members will be communicating with students electronically as well as facilitating students' use of technology-based learning tools in research, class projects, and teaching. After learning in a technology-enhanced classroom, and observing and practice teaching in high-tech environments, UM-St. Louis students will truly enter the profession as 21st century educators.