The online MA in Educational Technology offers a state-of-the-art curriculum designed by the College of Education and Health Sciences for students interested in instructional design and educational technology. The program provides an expansive set of courses so that students may customize their degree to align with their specific career interests.
MA in Educational Technology students develop high-demand competencies in a growing field and can choose from one of our popular tracks or work with an academic advisor to carefully craft a course sequence that will best prepare them to excel in their current and future careers.
Those who elect to follow the instructional design track develop the technical skills, problem-solving capabilities and theoretical and practical knowledge about teaching and learning in:
- Education game design
- Mobile learning
- Learning sciences
- …and more.
Students who pursue the educational technology track will develop the technical skills, problem-solving capabilities and theoretical and practical knowledge about teaching and learning in:
- Multimedia editing and web design
- Programming
- Data mining
- …and more.
Program Structure
This 32-credit program can be completed on a full-time or part-time basis. Full-time students are advised to start in the Fall with an optional flexible start in the Spring and typically enroll in three to four courses per semester, while part-time students typically enroll in two to three courses per semester. Most students complete the program in two years.
Online Learning Environment
All online MA in Educational Technology courses are delivered from a diverse array of state-of-the-art learning technology including Moodle, Canvas, podcasts and YouTube.
Students can view recorded lectures and complete related assignments and discussions largely on their own time.
Students typically devote five hours per class per week to coursework. Though the online format provides flexibility, most assignments must be completed on schedule.
Courses and Tracks
The following popular course tracks are provided as an example of how you may decide to complete the MA in Educational Technology. Regardless of the path students choose, they are encouraged to contact an enrollment advisor who can help to design the course schedule that best aligns with their individual career goals.
This course explores how multimedia, texting, chat, status updates and hypertext change the way we read and interpret texts. Students study various theories of literacy and how it changes with the introduction of digital technologies. Readings include selections on new media, new literacy, multiliteracies, multimedia cognition and visual semantics.
In this course, students learn the foundations of instructional design and understand how to integrate technology in meaningful ways in K-12, higher education or other educational settings. Students also learn how to develop and assess learning plans that are aligned to technology standards and/or other learning outcomes.
This course provides an introduction to computer programming using an object-oriented language, such as JAVA or C++. Students also learn selection and repetition, arrays, procedures, functions and polymorphism, as well as applications to simple problems.
In this course, students are introduced to major critical views on technology, culture, society and education. Students are also exposed to perspectives and ideologies such as Marxist, feminist and posthumanism. These positions will help students analyze and contextualize the role of technology along sociotechnical, historical, political, pedagogical and ethical lines.
From a foundation of computer networks and systems, this course expands to cover instructional technology infrastructure: file systems, users, wired and wireless networks, email, web servers, computer labs and common educational software services. This course focuses on Free Software, where the source code is free to use, study or modify.
In this course, students learn techniques of web programming to develop interactive, educational media. Using the Python programming language and web development technologies (HTML5, Javascript, CSS), students gain practice in the object-oriented programming and design of interactive software. For their final project, students will create their own educational website.
In this course, students study online learning in distance and blended classes, and in virtual schools in both higher education and K-12 settings. Looking at pedagogy, best practices, interactivity and student-centered design, this class considers the positive and negative potential of online learning in terms of universal accessibility, teacher development and economic sustainability.
Video games are one of the most successful entertainment forms among teenagers and adults alike. Their potential role in the classroom continues to be a subject of debate. This course introduces students to the key topics in the field, including game theory, design, genre and learning principles contained in games.
Most of the world connects to the internet from mobile phones. Android tablets and iPads are filtering into schools and the hands of children. Students carry significant computing power in their pockets. This course considers how mobile computing forces us to reconsider the time and the place of learning.
Social media pervades our social life, with implications for education, business and beyond. This course examines the sociological and psychological impacts, benefits and risks of social media. Students explore social networking sites, (micro) blogs, video and wikis; focusing on their use in classrooms to build community, develop literacy and foster critical thinking.
In this course, students investigate methods for determining if a given technology contributes to a stronger educational experience. Reviewing the body of research on educational technology, students will probe the merits of different methodologies. Students learn how to develop good research questions and choose methodologies to conduct their own investigations.
This course explores how digital media can best support learning. Working on semester-long projects, students learn about interaction and instructional design. In this hands-on-studio, faculty aid students to develop and extend skills in multimedia authoring that could include digital images/audio/video, web design, HTML/CSS/Javascript or web programming. Students can apply these skills to create original educational resources.
The integrative Masters Project is a tutorial arranged with a faculty member where students pursue topics of their interest in the form of integrative educational media development or research projects. Projects demonstrate mastery of instructional design tools and concepts in the form of original creative or scholarly work.
Note: Independent study form required
Elective courses may be substituted for special topics.
Narratives engage us—we use them to warn of danger, relate history, connect people and cultures, escape reality and ultimately grow our capacity for empathy, which is to say learn. In this course, students will explore the digital tools of interactive fiction (IF) to author their own learning materials and explore ways to integrate active narratives and IF into the teaching and learning process.
Join us in our Adelphi Makerspace as we become citizen scientists and experience together the interconnectedness of scientific inquiry and creation. Working collaboratively, we will design, test and build our own data-collection technologies and share our findings through an open web platform. This course is optional and includes a low residency or synchronous online component. Speak with an academic advisor for details.
Study the history of assistive technology and Universal Design for Learning, focusing current practices in K-12 classrooms. Gain hands-on experience with current tools and techniques, focusing on supporting struggling learners. Consider low and high tech tools, with an emphasis on classroom integration and initial curriculum design using UDL principles. This course is optional and includes a low residency component. Speak with an academic advisor for details.
Design curricula and educational games that harness the power of play to engage students in collaborative, creative learning activities. In this short course we will follow design thinking principles to imagine, design, test and refine our own original games. This course is optional and includes a low residency component. Speak with an academic advisor for details.
This course will examine the mechanical production of images, narratives that result and their social/political/ethical/educational implications. It will introduce video production techniques including composition, sequence and sound, and will examine video within education. Ultimately, this course will conceptualize storytelling using digital video to meet communicative/educational goals.
Credits required to graduate: 32
