Warner School awarded $725,000 grant

Borasi

he Margaret Warner Graduate School of Education and Human Development is using a federal grant award from the U.S. Department of Education to provide technology training to teachers. Funding through the Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers for Technology program begins this month with $260,000 for the first stage of the three-year project. The total grant is expected to be $725,000.

Raffaella Borasi, dean of the Warner School, and Ellen Santora, assistant professor of education and human development, are the project's directors. Borasi is a longtime champion of education reform and technology integration. She regularly incorporates technology into her teacher preparation classes.

The goal of the training program is to provide current and future teachers with the skills needed to use technology effectively in the classroom to support student achievement and to illustrate the potential--and the pitfalls--of technology's role in education.

"Future teachers must experience using technology as learners themselves and practice using it as teachers," says Borasi. "If student learning and achievement are essential to us, then we must take the necessary steps to prepare a new generation of technology-proficient teachers."

An important component of the technology project includes a series of partnerships with Rochester-area schools. The Warner School, along with Monroe No. 1 Board of Cooperative Educational Services, the East Rochester and Greece school districts, and two Rochester city schools, will offer professional development for those who train future teachers and demonstration sites for showing and testing technology-enhanced instruction.

In addition to the grant funds, the Warner School is investing in its educational technology initiative by constructing a classroom where student teachers use technology firsthand and receive support from an educational technology specialist. The Warner School also will develop technology-focused apprenticeship experiences for doctoral students preparing to become teacher educators and learning experiences for school administrators and other educational leaders.

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