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Matrix: The Magazine for Leaders in Education, Sept, 2000

Greensboro College in North Carolina hosted an orientation and dinner meeting for faculty and administrators from Greensboro College, Guilford College, Bennett College and the Guilford County School System to introduce them to the U.S. Department of Education Grant: "Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers to Use Technology."

The PICA-CARTS (Piedmont Independent College Association-Curriculum and Resource Training Sites) capacity building project was funded last September and focuses on creating networks among the colleges and the public schools that will be needed to establish technology resource sites on each of the three campuses and to support a Teacher Education Consortium for middle grade and secondary programs.

The curriculum and technology sites will be used by faculty, teachers, and students to model best practices in teaching and to test the most up-to-date technology resources, especially in math, science, and special education. The grant also provides funds for faculty development in teaching and technology. Faculty were encouraged to share ideas and to identify common interests that could be developed into projects that will result in advances in technology competence and instructional practices for faculty and pre-service teachers. Faculty also were asked to submit mini-grants describing plans to increase their technology teaching skills and to identify how they intend to share their projects and knowledge.

The University of Texas in Austin is considering joining the increasing number of schools that require graduate students to submit a digital copy of their dissertations. This spring the school began refining its digital-dissertation policy, and might start requiring electronic submission as early as May 2001. Digital formats allow students to include multimedia such as video and audio, and can be made more widely available than paper formats. The first university to require digital copies of theses and dissertations was Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, in January of 1997. Virginia Tech allows students to limit access to their work because of concerns that online distribution could lead print publishers to turn down the materials.