I earned my Masters in Educational Technology from...

I earned my Masters in Educational Technology from Boise State. I can't speak for other departments, but I will vouch for the EDTECH Department. Honestly, I can't recommend Boise State's EDTECH program highly enough. I quickly learned that BSU's online classes are pretty much guaranteed to be top-of-the-line and employ best practices, because best practices in online teaching is a big chunk of what is taught, and the professors practice what they preach.

There has not been a single class where I haven't learned material I could apply to my job. The program is ideal for teachers, but is not necessarily geared toward them. In my classes we ve had teachers, business managers, corporate trainers, and all sorts of people. The program is highly project-oriented, and they encourage you to come up with projects in each class that you can directly apply to your job and current teaching. It has been an absolute thrill being in every single class, and I'm not embellishing when I say that. The professors are knowledgeable, and encourage collaborative, constructivist learning. And they just make it FUN to do the work, and it's highly educational at the same time!

Boise State is a pioneer in educational technology, due to the way their department is organized. From what I understand, they don't receive much, if any state funding, so they depend entirely on attracting new students and keeping ahead of the curve. They're able to deliver cutting edge courses like mobile learning and Second Life classes, or whatever happens to be current in educational trends. And yes, it is affordable, but don t let the price fool you. They operate as an instructional design consulting firm as well, and produce classes for other school districts and educational institutions. They just launched their new 3d Game Lab (one of my Second Life classes was a beta tester), and are now using it for both curricular and extra-curricular workshops for teachers. The EDTECH Department has its hands in a lot of exciting projects, and I ve even gotten involved in some through the Graduate Student Association, and have been able to work with some of the brightest and most innovative educators I ve ever met.

My only complaint is that I don't currently have time to take more classes. But this is the only online ed tech program I've found that has a paid graduate assistantship program, where you can teach and aide for the university part-time and receive a full tuition waiver. As of this writing, they just got their EdD online and I intend to enroll in the program in the near future, especially if I can get the graduate assistantship. Also, as if a Master s degree isn t enough, you can also earn a graduate certificate of your choice while doing the M.ET. program.

In my opinion, you d be crazy NOT to choose Boise State s educational technology program. It truly is a rewarding, thrilling, top-notch graduate program, and it's recognized widely for its research and contributions in the field.