Participant Comments

The PT3 grant at the College of Education at University of Missouri-St. Louis focuses on teaching our faculty members to integrate technology into their classrooms by modeling the use of technology, posting their syllabus and assignments to Blackboard, holding online, asynchronous discussions, providing technology-enhanced assignments to their students, and requiring technology-enhanced presentations. Our PT3 Faculty members are listed here with comments on technology and the PT3 project.

"Along with Jan Mastin, I visited Gotsch Elementary School in the Affton School District in April, 2001. I observed two different classrooms using technology to complete assignments which involved research and production of a report. The fourth grade teacher asked his students to "create an island" and to then describe its attributes as well as to name it. The social studies project involved students in reading, mathematics, problem solving, writing creatively and synthesizing information they found on the web about their creation as well as organizing their results well enough to produce a document about the island. Since the students just began the project on the day I observed them, they were working with the first step, which was to name the island. I noticed a great deal of independent and collaborative thought between the partners at the computer and brainstorming which was very motivating to them. In fact, none of the students moved to go to recess when it was time because they were deep in thought trying to create the concept and name of their island. Students comfortably chose each other to work in pairs and seemed very engrossed in their work.

"The second class I observed involved children in writing and doing research about famous African American men and women. Here I saw the end products of the work in the form of books with pictures, all of which were drawn from Internet sites. I was impressed by the numbers of different sources for the researched information and the ability the students had to draw from a variety of references, including pictures, to compose the report. They were proud of their work and it extended their thinking far beyond looking in books and copying material. The students had much information from which to draw and then had to choose relevant and related materials, including text and photos. The production of a book in such a manner seemed very intellectually satisfying to the students and their understanding of what was included was evident. They truly "owned" their knowledge."
-Helene Sherman Chairperson, Teaching and Learning Division

"Learning from Pt3 teachers about curricula that uses technology creatively as well as learning skills from technology support staff has generated new ideas about how to integrate technology-flavored activity into pre-service teacher education. Modeling and collaboration seem to enhance transfer rather than direct instruction. I now include web resources regularly in my graduate courses as well. Pt3 resources have helped me purchase up-to-date development videos, obtain a zip drive to back-up my precious and burgeoning files, and a scanner to capture news articles, etc. to send out on my listserve Participation in Pt3 meetings has helped me be aware of what other faculty are doing with technology."
- Virginia Navarro Assistant Professor, Division of Educational Psychology, Research, and Evaluation

"I have been very pleased with the use of technology in my course. The PT3 program has encouraged me to examine my courses for logical ways to infuse technology into them. For instance, I find that my students reflect much better when they e-mail their reflections of their course work to each other rather than just write a reflection for me. With the support of the PT3.

"I have more confidence in developing additional ways to use technology. I am pleased that my students will now probably incorporate technology in their classrooms when they become classroom teachers. The staff has been extremely supportive in any project that my students and I have tried to undertake. I look forward to including more use of technology in my courses in the future."
- Margaret Ann Niederberger Adjunct, Division of Educational Psychology, Research, and Evaluation

"Being a participant in PT3 at UMSL has been a great experience. The opportunity to work with other instructors with varying degrees of technological expertise under the guidance of a very capable staff was very rewarding. When I began, I was quite proud of myself when I actually sent an attachment with an e-mail. Since then, I have utilized message boards, listserves, and an on-line document system (Docushare) in my practice. As a result, I've noticed that my students have become more familiar with and excited about the use of technology in their future teaching careers. Perhaps the most beneficial result of my participation in PT3 is that technology has been demystified."
- Bob Baskerville Adjunct, Division of Educational Psychology, Research, and Evaluation