In 1999, the University of Wisconsin—River Falls was awarded a Preparing Tomorrow’s Teachers to Use Technology (PT3) Implementation Grant totaling $572,356 from the United States Department of Education. The title of this grant was "Preparing UWRF Teachers for 21st Century Schools: Effective Use of Technology for Teaching and Learning." To implement the PT3 grant goals, a group of technologically competent students were selected and trained to become the Technology Leadership Cadre (TLC). https://www.uwrf.edu/tlc/ The TLC members were charged with providing technology integration support to students, faculty, and partner school faculty through workshops and individual assistance.
The Technology Leadership Cadre continues to provide support to UWRF students and faculty, and area k-12 educators, helping them integrate teaching/learning technologies in the learning environment. The TLC provides individual assistance to faculty in their offices, in campus labs and classrooms. Assistance can be arranged by filling out an on-line form at the TLC website. This help may be in creating effective PowerPoint presentations, developing Excel spreadsheets, learning how to create an iMovie or podcast, starting a Chalk and Wire e-portfolio, using D2L for classes, and exploring various other technology programs and processes. Upon request, TLC representatives will come into a classroom and provide instruction to students.
Although the PT3 funding ended in 2003, a successful effort has been made to retain the TLC as a student technology leadership model. Every grant proposed in the College of Education and Professional Studies builds in some funding for TLC support, and in the last two years some Student Tech Fees funding has partially supported the work of the TLC. Institutional funding is being sought so TLC can continue to provide critical technological assistance to both faculty and students at UWRF.
The TLC hosts weekly open help sessions, either in the Red Lab or WEB 129. These opportunities are advertised by posters as well as by a sandwich board outside the library. The TLC also maintains a presence in the Educational Technology Center in the Wyman Education Building, where any student may come and request technology assistance with classroom assignments/ projects. This is in addition to the desk staff in the ETC. Because of the numerous impromptu requests from friends and classmates, there is no definitive record of the number of students assisted by the TLC. The TLC, however, maintains work logs and tracks formal requests and responses via Footprints, an on-line task management program. As can be seen in the report from Dec 2006 (TLCAssistDataDec06.doc) most requests for assistance focus on individual student or classroom concerns. They also cover a wide range of topics (e.g., e-folio, web page design, iMovie). In addition, the TLC create handouts, tutorials, and tips for faculty and students needing help (see these at http://www.uwrf.edu/tlc/).
Since 1999 one hundred thirty-seven students have served in the TLC and have graduated, taking strong communication, technology and leadership skills into educational, corporate and governmental environments.
