AERA Presentation Based on EdTech Collaborative Website
Wed May 20 2009
Dr. Laurie Ruberg, associate director of the Center for Educational Technologies®, presented a paper at the 2009 American Educational Research Association annual meeting, held April 13-17 in San Diego.
Ruberg presented a paper as part of a five-paper strand addressing career and technical education in the 21st century workforce. Her paper was titled, "Blending Globalization and Curriculum Analysis to Study Technology-focused Teacher Training." About 30 people attended this session.
A new journal is being launched focusing on the theme of careers in technical education, and Ruberg has been invited to submit her article for this journal and to serve as a journal reviewer.
Ruberg's paper made use of the NASA-funded EdTech Collaborative website, created by the NASA-sponsored Classroom of the Future at the center to share best practices in educational technology. Her research examined a Pro/ENGINEER workshop in 2008 that used the EdTech Collaborative for professional development activities before, during, and after the workshop.
This study examined the inherent conflict between the general education goal of providing instruction that addresses enduring knowledge and generic process skills and the global system economies that desire a workforce prepared for immediate career placement. The tensions between these conflicting interests were explored within the design and implementation of the Pro/ENGINEER workshop and extended learning online course that was developed and offered collaboratively by a postsecondary institution and multinational corporation. The findings from this study demonstrate how shifts toward global systems, knowledge economies, lifelong learning, and multicultural factors impact the content and learning goals of K-12 teacher education and student instruction.
