The Doceo Center for Innovation + Learning recently opened at the University of Idaho to provide future teachers with technology training, integrate technology into K-12 classrooms and share research.
A $3 million grant was given to the College of Education from the J.A. and Kathryn Albertson Foundation for the Doceo Center, said Cassidy Hall, technology integration specialist.
“The goal is to assist school districts (throughout Idaho) and the University of Idaho with integrating technology throughout the classrooms,” she said.
The Doceo Center is located in the basement of the Student Union Building, room 040 and is stocked with multiple SMART and Sharp boards, Goggle Glass, Pivotheads, an Apple TV, about 20 Chromebooks, mini iPads, Samsung Galaxy tablets and flip cameras for students to use or faculty to borrow for classroom use.
Using different technologies such as flip cameras are a great way for students to experience different technologies, she said. Google Glass connects to Google sites through glasses, letting the wearer take picture, videos and translate languages. Pivotheads have the same idea as Google Glass but are limited to only allowing picture and video to be taken.
“These technologies tend to be very expensive, but if students and faculty can come here and experience them first maybe there are possibilities,” Hall said.
The SMART Interactive Display Boards are equipped with the Notebook collaborative learning software that is meant for the K-12 teaching environment and has many resources built into it to support the classroom, she said. The Sharp Interactive Whiteboard does not have the Notebook software for classroom use but are more for business use.
“They provide a lot of opportunities,” Hall said. “Maybe you don’t have the money to dissect frogs as a class but you can do it virtually and students can see all the parts the same way as if a real frog was laying there.”
The classroom is meant to be high tech to model to teachers what the possibilities are in their own classroom, she said. The five tables in the Doceo Center are all interactive but also interactive with every other table in the room, giving teachers a chance to include every student in their lesson.
Not every student learns in the same way and the Doceo Center makes sure every student is gaining the knowledge they need, Hall said. Some students are visual or hands-on learners and having technology in the classroom brings all types of learners together, such as offering audio, video and hands-on experiences.
Faculty are given a chance to learn about all the technologies through lectures specifically geared toward helping faculty become familiar with the different devices, she said.
The Doceo Center also makes sure future teachers currently attending UI are well equipped when it comes to technology in their classroom, she said. Many times the Doceo Center staff will guest lecture in education classes and show students technology tools and resources that can be used as an elementary education teacher for all subjects.
“I think it will definitely benefit students at the college level by exposing them to technologies that they might see as a future teacher, technologies that are appropriate for K-12 classroom use,” Hall said. “I see it benefitting other students on campus as well. If they need access to certain technologies, they can use us as a resource.”
For K-12 students, the benefit comes directly from the teachers that get involved, she said.
“Offering (professional development) to the teachers, so when the teachers start incorporating more technology into the classroom. Then the students have the benefit of hopefully more engagement and getting exposed to technology they might need to use outside of school and beyond the classroom in a career opportunity,” she said.
Everything the Doceo Center does is attached to research, so any findings that are found can be shared with others on a greater scale, said Royce Kimmons, director of the Doceo Center.
“Many times people are doing really integrative things, maybe in the classroom or in school but it’s not done in a way that can be shared with others,” he said.
The Doceo Center is also aimed toward integrating technology into K-12 schools and gaining research from experimentations directly in the classroom, Hall said. The Doceo Center has hosted multiple K-12 students in the lab to receive hands-on experience with the technology.
The Doceo Center has given 13 Idaho schools Chromebooks to use in the classroom, she said.
Chromebooks are more sustainable and a scalable solution to many of the educational problems found in the state, Kimmons said.
When technology is integrated into classrooms often the main focus is more on the technology and not on the learning, Kimmons said. Teachers become administrators instead of teachers, he said, and Chrombooks allow the removal of the management piece that is taking all of the teacher’s time and allowing them to go back to being educators.
On the Doceo Center website, www.doceocenter.org, the findings of the Chromebook Initiative can be found along with many other resources for teachers, students and researchers.
“Our goal for this research and sharing portal is to make it valuable for other teachers. So if they have a concrete problem they can come (to the website) and find something that will help them to solve it but also for researchers, making sure the value of the work that we have up is robust enough that it can inform them,” Kimmons said.
Emily Aizawa can be reached at [email protected]