The Educational Technology Partners (or ET Partners) program is right in line with the goals of the New Business Architecture since it brings together faculty with specially trained students toward the goal of developing faculty members' expertise in educational technology. In one-on-one partnerships, faculty can learn how to use MyUCDavis course management tools or other instructional technology tools to their advantage. To apply for a partnership or to learn more about this innovative program, visit http://mediaworks.ucdavis.edu/, select "Educational Technology," then "ET Partners." New proposals are being accepted now for Fall Quarter.

Elizabeth Upton is one of eleven students in the ET Partners program, making it easier for you to integrate technology into your teaching.

Educational Technology Pairs Students with Faculty

Unique Pilot Program Underway

by E. Cayce Dumont

When sophomore Elizabeth Upton came to UC Davis to major in communications and anthropology, she planned on studying differing interpersonal communication styles in order to better inform her future goals of studying and documenting global cultures. What she may not have expected is that her own communication skills might lend themselves to an entirely different occupation: helping her instructors to use educational technology. Elizabeth is one of 11 students employed by the pilot program, Educational Technology Partners program (ET Partners) initiated by Mediaworks, the instructional technology and digital media branch of Information and Educational Technology.

Students like Elizabeth see the job as "valuable communicating experience" from which she'll always draw. She also looks forward to contributing the knowledge of technology she's acquiring to her own field of study — anthropology — in which "so much global information needs to be shared, organized and communicated via technology."

The individual rewards for the program participants (both faculty and student) are obvious. But Elizabeth and Lenora, both extremely intelligent and articulate, are quick to outline the benefits that the ET Partners Program will offer the campus as a whole. Lenora explains, "the biggest reward of this program is that many people on campus will become more educated both immediately and in the future." True to the program's intent, Elizabeth explains that widespread familiarity with technology can have meaningful results: "Technology can enhance learning, because it accommodates all the types of learners-auditory, visual, tactile, kinetic. To be able to look at an image, hear a professor discussing it, read it, see text displayed, hear sounds — all these elements will help a student absorb information and knowledge." Along with so many faculty, students, and staff on the UC Davis campus, Elizabeth says she constantly imagines how we might "enhance the learning experience." The ET Partners Program, she ventures, "will be very beneficial" in achieving this shared goal.