All courses listed below are graduate-level courses and are 3 credit hours each. Courses with the LDT, INSYS, or EDTEC prefix at the 400-800 level can be applied to the M.Ed. in Learning, Design, and Technology (LDT) degree. Our two postbaccalaureate certificates require specific courses. The courses that can apply to each certificate are coded in the legend below and referenced at the end of the course descriptions. Legend:
- LDT required – Course is required for the M.Ed. in LDT degree (All other courses listed can be applied to your M.Ed.)
- ETI – Course can be applied to the Postbaccalaureate Certificate in Educational Technology Integration
- ELD – Course can be applied to the Postbaccalaureate Certificate in e-Learning Design
Course Applicability
The table below displays the LDT Program courses delivered via World Campus and the degree or certificates that each course can apply toward. The table is sortable by clicking on the arrows at the top of each column.
Course Code | M.Ed. in LDT | ETI Cert. | ELD Cert. |
---|---|---|---|
LDT 401 | √ | ||
LDT 415A | Required, core | Required | Required |
LDT 433 | √ | ||
LDT 440 | √ | √ | |
LDT 467 | Required, core | √ | √ |
LDT 505 | √ | √ | |
LDT 527 | Required, core | √ | |
LDT 550 | √ | √ | |
EDTEC/LDT 561 | √ | ||
LDT 566 | √ | √ | |
LDT 581 | √ | ||
LDT 824 | √ | ||
LDT 832 | √ | √ | |
LDT 835 | √ | ||
LDT 843 | Required, SARI | ||
LDT 867 | √ | ||
ADTED 531* | * (if accepted to ELD) | √ | |
Total Credits | 30 | 15 | 12 |
Course Descriptions
The following course descriptions are listed in numerical order of the course code. Remember an 800-level course is NOT more difficult than a 500-level course.
LDT 401 Gaming 2 Learn
Gaming 2 Learn focuses on the uses of gaming in the classroom from preK-12 and nonprofits, as well as corporate, continuing education and non-formal/informal learning spaces. The primary goal is a clear orientation toward the potential uses of gaming and a grounding in gaming as one of many possible ways to deeper engagement with learners, particularly disenfranchised learners. Gaming is taken up as a form of engagement with an orientation toward commercial gaming and taking learners from where they are. Educational gaming and motivational gaming is briefly considered, as well as the foundations of play and game learning. The bulk of the course is focused on integration plans of commercial games learners are already playing to identify ways that games can be leveraged to meet traditional learning goals and classroom standards. Ultimately, learners in 401 will gain strong facility with the integration of games into their learning environments with an eye toward high learner engagement.
LDT 415A Systematic Instructional Development
The goal of LDT 415A is to provide students with in-depth experience in using a systematic approach to instructional design and includes both foundational knowledge and practical skills. Students learn and apply design principles that can be used with any instructional delivery system as you consider each phase of instructional systems design. 415A is a core course in the online masters program but will also be of great interest to adult educators, those in higher education, and anyone who wants to create effective learning environments. Ultimately, 415A will help students gain a facile ability to apply a model of instructional design to the creation of learning resources and settings. [LDT core/required, ETI, ELD]
LDT 433 Teaching and Learning Online in K-12 Settings
This course focuses on the status of online K-12 education including criticisms of the movement and how it is impacting K-12 education in general. Students will critically examine many aspects of online K-12 education including funding, policy, school choice, accountability, and program quality. Students will be guided through the process of transforming their teaching when moving from traditional face-to-face classrooms to online settings. Topics explored include key principles of effective online instruction, tools for teaching online, creation of an online environment conducive to learning, strategies for collaboration and community building, facilitating effective online discussions, designing quality online lessons, supporting learners with special needs and exploring concerns unique to online learning environments. The assignments in the course include micro teaching experience which happens three times for each learner, formal and informal discussion engagement, a resource list for online learning, and the culminating project – a philosophy of online learning. The course utilizes various theoretical and practical resources for student examination and exploration that enable learners to personalize the experience in a way that makes it both meaningful and applicable to their current situations.
LDT 440 Educational Technology Integration
This course introduces foundational ideas, skills, concepts, and strategies for integrating technology into learning environments. Within learning environments of all types, technology is not simply an independent curriculum, such as teaching learners about how to use technology. Rather it is a powerful means for addressing, and potentially redefining, everyday teaching/facilitation and learning issues. The potential of technology is most effectively realized when considered in combination with views about how learners think and learn best. The goal of this course, then, is not for you to become an expert in “technology,” but to improve your understanding of relationship between technology, teaching, and learning. Note: This course was formerly coded as EDTEC 440. LDT 440 and EDTEC 440 are equivalent and satisfy the same requirements in our programs. [ETI]
LDT 467 Emerging Web Technologies and Learning
Web 2.0 tools and social media are becoming an increasingly more pervasive part of our daily lives. From online social networks such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, blogs, etc., to collaborative platforms such as Wikis, Diigo, Youtube, etc., technology tools are allowing individuals to move from consumers to prosumers of information, and allowing individuals to become active participants and creators of content and content dissemination. For educators, examining the tools, practices, and communities that form around specific interests can lead to fruitful methods of engaging the learners in practices and interactions that are familiar from their everyday engagement with these tools. [LDT core/required, ETI, ELD]
LDT 505 Integrating Mobile Technologies into Learning Environments
This course takes a learning sciences and an educational technology perspective to examine how people use and learn with mobile device in their everyday life. Mobile devices include handhelds gaming consoles, tablets, smartphones, digital cameras, MP3 players, and other small digital technologies. Our goal is that you will understand the uses of mobile technologies and the possibilities of how people can use the tools as learning supports, so you can become an educated critic and a competent integrator of mobile computers in learning environments, as the technologies change and evolve over time. The class will cover mobile technologies learning research from across the world. [ETI]
LDT 527 Designing Constructivist Learning Environments
This course emphasizes the design of learning environments based on constructivist principles of teaching and learning. The role of technology in the design and enhancement of learning environments has become a topic of great attention in educational research, technology, and practice. This course will explore issues related to the design of constructivist learning environments. This is an active area of educational research, and, at this time, research strategies and analytical techniques are still evolving. The increasing number of design efforts and technology advances call for establishing more formalized approaches. Course participants will work together to develop a better understanding of the principles involved in student-centered, constructivist learning. Participants will create “blueprint” designs of a variety of learning environments that are grounded in research and/or emerging theory of student-centered, constructivist learning. [LDT core/required, ETI]
LDT 550 Design Studio
Design Studio is an environment for students to design and develop innovative ways of using technology to solve educational problems in diverse educational settings. These settings may include schools, universities, businesses, or other informal learning environments. On the first day of class, you will be assigned a level according to your background and interests. Next, you will build a pathway of technology modules that you want to learn. During the course, you will learn about the design process by reading contemporary design texts and by participating in small group design activities. [ETI]
EDTEC/LDT 561 Measuring the Impact of Technology on Learning
This course is designed to prepare educators in basic qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods used to assess the effects of a variety of technology-related innovations on learning in and out of the classroom. During this course, we will survey a variety of methods used in the social sciences and educational research. This course serves to give you a general overview of the kinds of methods researchers in our field use in their studies, and you may want to engage with for your graduate projects, theses, capstones, and dissertations. Throughout the course, you will be expected to reflect on the different methods on your own and with your classmates, engage in different data collection and analysis techniques, and write a final research proposal related to your area of interest. Final projects could include designing and developing an implementation project to examine the effectiveness of technology-enhanced learning experiences in your classroom or school, or a naturalistic observation of the ways learners utilize technologies in their daily lives. Note: A code change for this course is pending. Following all approvals, it will become LDT 561.
LDT 566 Using Technology to Enhance Learning Processes
The main aim of this course is to help students understand that technology use has important tradeoffs that need to be considered when designing technology-enhanced learning contexts. The course will examine the costs and benefits of technology use and cover emerging research topics on technology-enhanced learning. The course will connect learning theories with concrete examples of how technology can be used to enhance important learning processes. Building on these course topics students will be expected to propose concrete ways that they can change existing design/teaching processes to mitigate problems associated with technology use so as to better enhance learning processes. [ETI]
LDT 581 Theoretical Foundations of Learning, Design, and Technology
This course guides learners to read, reflect on, and discuss various historical and contemporary learning theories and frameworks within the area of Learning, Design, and Technology. The aim of the course is to help learners to construct their individual knowledge of theories as well as derive implications of those theories for their individual design toolkits, which includes identifying the implications of each theory/framework for learning, design, and assessment, and their particular importance for us as designers and researchers.
LDT 824 Making and Education: Fabrication, DIY and Content Creation in Learning, Design and Technology
This course will explore the historical roots of maker education and hobbyist learning activities, as well as the changing landscape of making, content creation and constructionist activities in formal and informal learning environments. The purpose of the course is to build upon students’ knowledge, skills and understanding of different uses of historical, contemporary and emerging physical, digital and non-digital tools and technologies and their affordances for teaching and learning in formal and informal contexts.
LDT 832 Designing e-learning Within Course Management Systems
This course is especially intended for professionals in corporate and non-profit settings, including those in online cyber schools, but is useful for anyone designing online learning. Varieties of course management systems meet the pressing need to safeguard students in online learning settings, and so mastering your CMS is a critical part of your professional expertise. In this course, you will learn to incorporate a wide assortment of resources into your CMS-managed lessons, e-learning that you can use on Monday morning in your own professional setting! [ELD]
LDT 835 Supervised Field Experience in Online Instruction
Higher Education & Corporate Edition: By special agreement with World Campus Learning Design, this edition of the course is offered occasionally for LDT students who have completed more than 15 credits in the LDT program. This course is geared for those with an interest in how learning design works in a professional context (corporate, government, commercial, organizational, and higher education). This course will help students gain insight into many aspects of how an innovative learning design organization functions, and is intended to prepare you to work in such organizations. Students will engage with professionals in a variety of roles typical of a learning design organization including instructional designers, multimedia developers, and programmers, and will have the opportunity to see how designers engage with faculty throughout a real development cycle. Enrollment in this course requires permission from the LDT program. For more information about this course contact Dr. Kim.
LDT 843: Learning Technologies for Good and Evil
This course starts from the assumption that good outcomes of new technology for education and society are never guaranteed but rather that the use of technology for learning, or any other purpose, always entails ethical tensions — a struggle between “good” and “evil.” The course provides a practical angle on these issues for learning technology designers, educators, and researchers. The course is organized into three parts. Part 1 provides initial conceptual frames for thinking about ethical issues in technologies for education and learning, including basic moral theory, utopian/dystopian thinking, and guiding values. Part 2 surveys a range of contemporary issues in technology and ethics that are relevant to education and learning. For example, the course considers issues of surveillance, engagement, and addiction, and debates over profit-seeking. Part 3 focuses on drawing conclusions for practice, with application to individual students’ professional contexts. [LDT SARI required]
LDT 867 Designing and Researching Games and Online Communities for Teaching and Learning
This course focuses on historic and contemporary issues relevant to designing and researching games (digital and non-digital), and related media and online communities for learning. The purpose of the course is to provide an overview of relevant literature and timely topics related to games, learning, and communities of practice in order to engage in effective research and design for learning and engagement. Drawing on interdisciplinary research, students will examine the history of digital games, research on gameplay and players, review how researchers from different disciplines have conceptualized and investigated learning through playing and designing games, and what we know about possible outcomes. The course also addresses how games and communities can effectively be designed to be inclusive of learners of different ages, backgrounds, and abilities.
Other Electives
Students can take up to six credits (typically two courses) from other Penn State online graduate programs (i.e., courses at the 400-800 level) — with pre-approval from your LDT advisor. Other elective courses most often from Lifelong Learning and Adult Education (ADTED) and Workforce Education and Development (WFED). Students must consult with their advisor prior to enrolling in any course that is not listed above.
* ADTED 531 Course Design and Development in Distance Education
This course is offered in partnership with the Adult Education program for students enrolled in the e-Learning Design certificate. LDT degree or certificate students who wish to take this course must enroll in the e-Learning Design certificate program. Students who earn the e-Learning Design certificate and continue into the M.Ed. in LDT program will automatically have ADTED 531 applied toward their degree.