KINGSTON – The University of Rhode Island’s School of Education has won a $5.6 million state grant to develop a new model of technology training for new and prospective teachers.

The grant will support URI’s New Order, Multi-Modal Advanced Design (NOMAD) Learning Spaces, a project intended to encourage collaboration by easing the transmission of knowledge, within the classroom and beyond. “This project is an answer to the question, ‘How do we ensure that teachers effectively use technology to enhance student learning?’,” David Byrd, director of the URI School of Education, which is part of the College of Human Science and Service, said in a statement this afternoon.

Goals include giving teachers and their students better access to the latest news and professional-development information in math, science, engineering and technology; boosting the number of teachers in those fields; developing new teaching methods; and engaging students whose nomadic learning style is a product of an era of laptop computers, cell phones, PDAs and podcasts.

“Our own students preparing to be pre-kindergarten through grade 12 teachers need to be ready to use these tools skillfully when they enter the work force, and current teachers need support so they can use technology as a collaborative tool to enhance learning in all areas,” Byrd said.

“This project will help students and teachers access exciting discoveries, research and education developments at URI and elsewhere, as they move about their lives.”

Rhode Island College and the Community College of Rhode Island also have been awarded funding for similar initiatives. The grants are the result of an effort by the R.I. Office of Higher Education, the General Assembly and the governor’s office, Byrd said. The schools will work to develop a consistent approach to the use of technology in teacher education, the R.I. Board of Governors for Higher Education has said.

URI’s grant will support installations in 30 classrooms and four auditoriums, spread across 10 buildings and three campuses; plus purchases of social and other software, Web services, scientific probes and laboratory instruments; and experiments in online and remote learning.

“We’ve earmarked about $1 million of the grant for work with the public schools,” said Pete Adamy, a URI associate professor and NOMAD’s project coordinator, creating links such as that between URI’s Inner Space Center and Smithfield High School. That link allows Smithfield students and teachers to view and communicate with Prof. Robert Ballard’s oceanography research expeditions as they happen.

“We want to expand these types of opportunities to many other schools,” Adamy said. “Everyone remembers Generation X – well, now we are preparing to educate the teachers and students of Generation Net.”

Additional information about the University of Rhode Island and its School of Education, a division of the URI College of Human Science and Service, is available at www.uri.edu/news/ and www.uri.edu/hss/education.