Traci Gardner, Carolyn Handa, Will Hochman, Michael J. Day, Keith Dorwick, and Lisa Gerrard

It doesn't take any research to know one thing about teaching with computer technologies: without the money and resources to acquire, manage, and maintain computer technology on a campus or in a department, any teaching initiative focusing on using computer technologies will fail. Whether the teaching is to take place on single workstation, in a departmental computer lab, or on a university-wide or district-wide network, the financial ability to purchase the hardware and software, and to fund the technical support, training, and facilities upkeep is absolutely vital if the initiative is to succeed. In short, money matters.

To find this financial support, teachers turn to a variety of resources such as departmental, college, and university building and equipment funds, teaching excellence grants programs, state technology initiative funds, and NEH and FIPSE grants. The process of finding these funding sources, applying for the funds, and getting a request accepted is arduous. The teacher must find ways to match just the right computer technologies and facilities to teachers, writing programs, and students while simultaneously finding ways to create, sustain, and fund these on-going initiatives. And nearly always, the process begins with the teacher writing a document which outlines how computer technology will be used in the writing classroom, program or initiative, and which indicates how the financial investment of the funding entity will benefit from this investment. That document is most often either a technology plan or a request-for-funding, or grant, application.

Several Internet resources, most notably those sponsored by the Northwest Educational Technology Consortium and the National Center for Technology Planning , provide general advice about writing funding documents and technology plans. These resources combined with site- and district-specific technology initiatives documents such as the British Columbia Technology Planning Institute Planning Checklist and other state and district planning documents and guidelines give the teacher working in the writing classroom much useful advice on how to begin the process of writing a technology plan or grant application.

The difficulty for the teacher writing these documents, however, is that there is little in the way of specific guidance or concrete models and resources to help those new to the process of requesting funding which specifically focuses on the technology plans and grants applications for use in composition, professional communications, writing across the curriculum, and other English-Studies concentrations. This full-day, preconference workshop will work to fill this gap by focusing on explaining, exploring, and beginning the process of writing technology plans, grant applications, and other request-for-funding documents with the participants.

Colleagues from a wide array of post-secondary Institutions, who have written grants, proposals, and plans valuing several million dollars have designed this workshop to help participants generate site-specific documents by focusing on three broad areas:

1. Determining Program Needs, Available Funding Sources, and Grant Requirements;

2. Matching Computer Technologies to Pedagogical Goals and Student Needs; and

3. Providing Support and Assessment of Technology Initiatives.

The three sections of this workshop, supplemented by on-line discussion before and after the workshop, will provide participants with models, feedback, and current research and scholarship as they plan, write, and revise documents to use when they return to their home Institutions. Additionally, the discussion and brainstorming during the session combined with the resources and models of the facilitators to create a discipline-specific resource collection for teachers writing these documents in the future.

Back