Instructional Technology Academy

ITA Logo 225Mission

Video Presentation defining the New Media Consortium/Instructional Technology Academy

The Jefferson State Instructional Technology Academy (ITA) has as its purpose to provide technology-related professional development, information, options, and strategies that facilitate improved instruction and more efficient work habits through the use of technology in official duties and daily responsibilities of faculty and staff.

Services

Goals

  1. Promote awareness of ITA
  2. Explore new technologies
  3. Answer questions related to technology
  4. Provide technology-related professional development
  5. Highlight faculty innovation, creativity, and achievement

Background

The Jefferson State ITA had its origins as a grant-based project created in 2003, and its first class of students who participated in the summer of 2003 were local high school faculty, who underwent a selection process based on an evaluation of proposals for technology projects to be completed. Four mentors, three of whom were Jefferson State faculty members, were selected to work with these first participants. The Instructional Technology Academy is being reactivated as an umbrella for the faculty development, mentoring, training, and similar activities related to the New Media in Instruction Committee (NMIC).

This committee was created in 2005, when Jefferson State became a part of the New Media Consortium (NMC), a growing group of 250 learning-focused organizations, mostly colleges and universities, with membership by invitation only in most states in the United States and in other countries: Canada, Europe, Asia and Australia. The purpose of the consortium is to stimulate creative thinking and innovation in the use of technology applications for learning. The NMIC is Jefferson State’s extension of the NMC.

Since its creation in 2005, Jefferson State’s NMIC, through a Classroom Technology Initiative, has created a structured faculty development program (Faculty Certificate in Technology), a mentoring program for one-on-one assistance and help with attaining the faculty certificate or with less-involved projects, and a Technology Bureau that can provide answers to quick questions related to technology projects. The first person to complete the program and earn her Faculty Certificate in Technology, Wendy Sweatt, is now a member of the NMIC team. The services resulting from the efforts of the NMIC team are those now offered through Instructional Technology Academy.