On January 8, 2002, President George W. Bush reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 by signing the No Child Left behind Act of 2000 into law (US DOE, 2002a). Through federal mandates, the United States Department of Education directed state and local school officials to assume a prominent role in ensuring that individuals teaching in all core academic subject areas become highly qualified by the end of the 2005-06 academic year (USDOE, 2002b).
In addition to federal mandates, the emergence of a global knowledge economy challenges educational policymakers to abandon the traditional approaches to education in favor of a new educational model that will support a student's lifelong learning needs.
In a global knowledge economy, technological skills and innovation are valued resources for economic growth. Communication, problem-solving, collaboration, and the development of information and communication technology skills are important knowledge economy competencies that must complement a leamer's current educational core skills in the areas of language, mathematics, and science.
In the State of Connecticut, changes in teacher certification regulations were slated to become effective in July, 2003 and had included a cross endorsement in the area of computer technology for educators teaching kindergarten through twelfth grades (CSDE, 1998a). These regulations had subsequently been repealed during a Regular Session of the Connecticut General Assembly (CGA, 2003, June 26). As a result, educators can continue to receive their teaching certificates under the teacher certification regulations in effect since August, 1998.
As a result of this investigation, this researcher developed a taxonomy of online learning behaviors along with guidelines for improving teacher quality through the availability of a cross endorsement in the area of computer technology. In order to achieve the goal of this research, an online educational technology program was designed, implemented, and evaluated based on the Whitten, Bentley, and Dittman (2004) information systems design model. One online course was measured and discussed in terms of the benchmarks for quality in distance learning programs that are recommended by Phipps, Merisotis, Harvey, and O'Brien (2000).
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:nova.edu/oai:nsuworks.nova.edu:gscis_etd-1430 |
| Date | 01 January 2005 |
| Creators | Bruciati, Antoinette P. |
| Publisher | NSUWorks |
| Source Sets | Nova Southeastern University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Source | CEC Theses and Dissertations |
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