September 30. 2002

Boise State is one of 10 institutions nationwide to receive awards in the first round of funding from the Innovative Teachers Program sponsored by Microsoft and the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE). The grant provides $184,800 in Microsoft XP operating system and educational application licenses for computer labs in the school district and in the university’s College of Education.

"We’re excited about this new partnership," said Joyce Garrett, dean of the College of Education. "Greg Butler of Microsoft said it best when he stated that ‘technology in the hands of a well-trained faculty can take education to the next level.’ It is really the students, however, who will benefit most by having teachers who can spend more time focused on providing quality instruction in technology-rich environments."

Boise State faculty will work with social studies teachers at Marsing’s middle and high schools on developing lesson plans that are supported by the new software, said Boise State education professor Richard Johnson, who procured the grant. The lesson plans and supplementary materials will be available on a Web site for other teachers to use. In addition, videos in CD-ROM format that feature classroom demonstrations of the lesson plans and comments from the teachers who presented the lessons will also be available.

"Traditionally, the type of classes that have used spreadsheets and databases are math and the sciences. There seems to be a gap when it comes to social studies, but there are many ways spreadsheets and databases could be used," said Johnson.

For example, students studying the Civil War could each be assigned to research a different battle, Johnson said. The students could then organize the information on spreadsheets to analyze data on the number of casualties, the supplies used, the location, the outcome, and other details from each battle.

"There are many possibilities," said Johnson. "We’re looking forward to the opportunity to work cooperatively with teachers in the Marsing School District and to develop this relationship."

Marsing Middle School teacher Rick Folwell said the collaboration will benefit both students and his fellow teachers. "For teachers, the difficult part is not teaching a new skill, but getting things organized to do that," said Folwell, who will receive a master’s degree in educational technology from Boise State in December. "Working with Boise State, we’ll be able to do that."

The AACTE-Microsoft Innovative Teachers Program plans to eventually distribute some $50 million in awards to universities and colleges. In addition to Boise State, the following universities received first-round funding: Indiana State University, Mercyhurst College, Northwestern State University, Sonoma State University, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, University of Missouri-Columbia,University of Montana-Western, University of Pittsburgh and University of Texas-San Antonio.

"Receiving this grant award recognizes the Department of Educational Technology for its well-deserved reputation for providing quality outreach programs," added Garrett. "In addition, it is another indicator that Boise State University is competitive at the national level. It is an example of how the College of Education strives to fulfill its mission and role with respect to research, scholarly activity and outreach."

Richard Johnson
Educational technology
426-3381

Janelle Brown
communications and marketing
426-1790