Department faculty teach 16,305 participants in the Using Educational Technology in the English Language Classroom course!

CATEGORIES: ALT, Department News

We are pleased to announce that the Iowa State University-developed Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on Using Educational Technology in the English Language Classroom (https://www.openenglishprograms.org/MOOC) ended for 16,305 participants on July 27, 2020. This MOOC was offered as part of the Online Professional English Network (OPEN), which is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State with funding provided by the U.S. Government and administered by FHI 360. Developed and delivered by a team in the English Department at Iowa State University, Haeyun Jin and Fatemeh Bordbariavidi, two PhD students in the Applied Linguistics & Technology (ALT) Program, were the lead instructors for the course, which also featured Prof. Volker Hegelheimer, an ALT faculty member.  Haeyun called the last six months a “rewarding and exciting experience, which I’ve never envisioned doing in my whole professional life,” and Fatemeh emphasized that a “great team and great participants made it a successful experience.” The MOOC started Feb. 10, 2020, and was slated to run until May, but with the pandemic unfolding, the ISU team was asked to extend the course until the end of July to provide valuable professional development opportunities to many language teachers around the world who were impacted by COVID-19.