Future Teachers Get Lessons in Technology

While student teacher Brandye Brent instructed her Santa Susana High School English class on essay writing and “Romeo and Juliet” in Simi Valley, her peers sat hovered around a computer monitor miles away watching her.

It was the first time future teachers such as Brent put their high-tech video conference system into action--one of several technologies being tested at Cal Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks to help budding educators feel more comfortable using computers in the classroom.

“If teachers don’t know how to use [them], the computers sit there in boxes or in the back of the lab and aren’t used effectively,” said Carol Bartell, dean of Cal Lutheran’s School of Education.

A push to bring technology to the forefront of education has led CLU to revamp its curriculum in recent years. This summer the private university begins construction on a $6-million education and technology center on its main campus.

“The combining of education and technology was a very natural marriage for us, because the School of Education has moved forward with use of technology in teaching and learning,” Bartell said.

University officials said the education and technology center is long overdue. For more than 20 years, the School of Education has been in a cramped, two-story former residence, and technology learning has been scattered across campus.

Bartell said her school serves about 750 mostly part-time students, studying for their fifth-year credentials or master’s degrees. Brent, who has a bachelor’s degree, is completing her teaching credential and plans to attend CLU in the fall for its master’s program.

The education and technology center is part of a master plan to expand the CLU campus in anticipation of a growing undergraduate population--from 1,600 to an expected 2,200 students--during the next 10 years, said George Engdahl, senior vice president for university advancement.

A new residence hall was completed last year, and funds will be raised in the next two years to build a $20-million athletic complex on the north side of campus, Engdahl said.

The 20,000-square-foot Spies-Bornemann Center for Education and Technology, to open in September 2002, will be funded in part by a private donation of nearly $3 million by Karen Bornemann Spies and her husband, Alan Spies, both from the class of 1970, and their families. Alan Spies, now retired, is the former chief financial officer for U.S. West Inc. Theirs is the largest private gift ever received by Cal Lutheran, said Lynda Fulford, university spokeswoman.

To accommodate faculty and staff members, the facility will include an Internet-oriented learning classroom, a television studio and a model laboratory where teachers can observe various ways of incorporating technology into their instructional methods.

“We’ve been able to redesign all of our courses so that every course now has a technology component, so now technology is not something people learn on the side. They use technology to find ways to design curriculum,” Bartell said.

Now in her last days of student teaching, Brent, 23, has used an electronic grade book, resources on the Internet and e-mail to regularly communicate with her students.

“I’ve used technology on a daily basis in my classroom, and I’ve found it very helpful. I can’t imagine going into a classroom without it,” Brent said. “If it’s over a weekend or a break and they have a concern, they will e-mail me. If they are working on an assignment and have a question that couldn’t wait until the next day, I can get back to them right away.”

For aspiring teachers such as Brent, technology has been an integral part of their course work since day one at CLU. They have all kept electronic portfolios, where they post examples of their work on a Web site that often includes links to other resources on the Internet.

And once some glitches are worked out with the video conference system between Santa Susana and the CLU campus, both the future teachers and CLU faculty will be able to observe and communicate with the high school classroom in Simi Valley over the Internet.

“We know that our teachers are going to teach the way they were taught,” said Paul Gathercoal, associate professor and director of educational technology for CLU’s School of Education.

Before long, it may not be the norm for students to know more about technology than their teachers do, Brent said.

“The students are growing up with it,” she said.

“I didn’t have a computer when I was in high school. But for these kids it’s second nature for them, and it has to be for teachers as well.”