The face of education has changed worldwide. Of the many developments in education, two of the most vital forces are those of emerging educational technologies and the presence of multiple cultures, nationalities, races, and ethnicities in the classroom. As technology breaks the boundaries of the classroom, reaching out to different states and countries, the school will become increasingly heterogeneous. Pre-service teachers must embrace technology and diversity as forces that have the power to shift the paradigm of education. Technology and diversity are cyclical currents. As technology increases outreach through distance education and collaboration, the school will encompass a more varied population of students. An increasingly diverse student base then requires the sensible use of technologies. Within this project students will learn educational technology theory and practice, use and learn about distance education tools (including online environments, video-conferencing, and others), instructional design, an development tools.

Students will make use of online technology as to provide students an active learning opportunity. The only way students will truly understand the challenges and successes of distance education is by experiencing true distance. The proposed program provides opportunities for students to live and study abroad and collaborate online with their counterparts in both the US and other countries. The online interaction between students of different cultures will expose them to real life challenges of working from different geographic locations with differing computing and communication technologies as well as language differences. As a result best practices will be considered and established as new challenges are surmounted. During the course of this project you will take classes and work with teachers and highly respected professionals in technology education. You will gain exposure to distance education tools, and will have the opportunity to work on many ongoing projects (check the universities page for more information about the ongoing projects).

This project is funded jointly by the Fund for the improvement of post-secondary education in the USA (FIPSE) and the Centro de aperfeiçoamento de pessoal de nível superior in Brazil (CAPES).