UB Graduate School of Education and Buffalo Schools Awarded $1.3 Million Federal Technology Grant

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- The U.S. Department of Education (DOE) has awarded a $1.3 million three-year grant to a consortium composed of the University at Buffalo's Graduate School of Education (GSE), the UB Center for Applied Technologies in Education (CATE), the Buffalo Public Schools and WNED-TV, Channel 17.

The grant was awarded under a DOE initiative called Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers Use

Technology - PT3 for short - designed to assist teacher-education programs in preparing technology-proficient educators for 21st-century schools.

The goal of the grant is to transform the UB teacher-education program into a national model for pre-service teacher preparation, with an emphasis on instructional technology. Pre-service teachers are those who do not have their permanent New York State teaching certification.

Last year, a consortium consisting of UB's Graduate School of Education, the New York State Department of Education, Columbia University Teachers' College and Syracuse University received a $495,000 PT3 catalyst grant to develop a program of technology instruction for pre-service teachers, particularly those in urban schools.

The new implementation grant will fund in-service education in the use of educational technology for teachers and pre-service teachers at 15 Buffalo schools over the course of the three-year grant.

In addition, the grant will fund professional development efforts for members of the UB teacher-education faculty so that faculty members possess the same instructional-technology skills that are being developed in the school's teacher-education graduates.

The project's co-principle investigators are Donald Jacobs, Ph.D., associate dean for research and technology in the Graduate School of Education, and Suzanne Miller, Ph.D., associate professor of English education in the school's Department of Learning and Instruction.

The project will be a team effort involving the school's faculty and staff; several graduate students; faculty and staff of the school's Education and Informatics Systems Team, and faculty, staff, students and parents of students in the Buffalo Public Schools.