| A team of technology experts in
the College of Education is leading a student-
 |
Michael Orey (left) and instructional
technology graduate students Jo McClendon and Tel Amiel are
coordinating
the program. (Photo by Peter Frey) |
centered United
States–Brazil exchange program that focuses on two vital
forces changing the face of education worldwide: emerging technologies
and multiple cultures in the classroom.
UGA is heading the U.S. effort in a consortium of four institutions
which also includes Utah State University, Universidade Federal
do Ceará (in Fortaleza, on Brazil’s northeastern coast)
and Universidade Estadual Paulista (in Bauru, in the state of São
Paulo).
“The teachers of tomorrow must embrace technology and diversity
as forces that have the power to shift the paradigm of education,”
says Michael Orey, an associate professor in instructional technology
who’s directing the project.
The program will focus on designing a four-course undergraduate
certificate in “Technology Integration and the Multicultural
Classroom.” The overall goal, however, is to take eight undergraduate
teacher-education students at each institution and help use technology
to connect cultures, according to Tel Amiel and Jo McClendon, two
doctoral students in instructional technology who are developing
the new project. The program will help the students gain competence
in Portuguese or English and with technology for teaching. They
will learn about the exchange country’s culture and spend
six months studying there.
“This certificate program will better prepare our future teachers
on how to use technology in the K–12 classroom as a problem-solving
method while leveraging cross-cultural networks and global awareness,”
says Orey. “Teaching future educators adds a lasting, exponential
value to the exchange. Participants will return to their home schools
as agents of change, helping others gain a multicultural perspective
in education and the effective application of technology in rural
and urban classrooms, in both developed and developing countries.”
Funding for the program comes from the U.S.–Brazil Higher
Education Consortia Program, a grant competition run cooperatively
by the governments of the two countries.
In the first of four years, the UGA-led effort is funded jointly—with
a $200,000 grant from each country—through the U.S. Department
of Education’s Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education
and the Brazilian Ministry of Education’s Fundacao Coordenação
de Aperfeiçoa–mento de Pessoal de Nível Superior.
Each exchange student will pay fall tuition and any costs greater
than the $4,000 each is provided through the program. UGA students
must take the first two introductory Portuguese classes in advance
and then will get two more in the intensive summer training that
is offered by UGA’s Romance languages department in Rio de
Janeiro. Students must also take an introductory computers class
before leaving.
Preliminary work on the project began this past fall. Faculty from
UGA and Utah State are traveling to Brazil to visit both partner
institutions this month. Orey says he hopes the U.S.–Brazil
exchange will become a permanent study-abroad program in the college,
one that can be replicated in other exchange programs.
With a 300 percent increase in Latino immigrants in Georgia in recent
years, branching out in Latin American countries seems more important
than ever, according to Orey, who has been at UGA since 1989. His
research focuses on cognitive applications of technology, learning
theory, motivation theory and instructional theory. Amiel is a Brazilian
native and current president of the Brazilian Student Association
at UGA. McClendon serves as an editor for the 2005 Educational Media
and Technology Yearbook. Jay Harriman, associate director of UGA’s
Office of Instructional Support and Development, is the project
evaluator.
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