2.

Teaching
Teaching With Technology
GOAL: Educators will be supported by technology that connects them to people, data, content, resources, expertise,
and learning experiences that can empower and inspire them to provide more effective teaching for all learners.

Technology offers the opportunity for teachers to become more collaborative and extend learning beyond the
classroom. Educators can create learning communities composed of students; fellow educators in schools,
museums, libraries, and after-school programs; experts in various disciplines around the world; members of
community organizations; and families. This enhanced collaboration, enabled by technology offers access to
instructional materials as well as the resources and tools to create, manage, and assess their quality and
usefulness

To enact this vision, schools need to support teachers in accessing needed technology and in learning how
to use it effectively. Although research indicates that teachers have the biggest impact on student learning
out of all other school-level factors, we cannot expect individual educators to assume full responsibility for
bringing technology-based learning experiences into schools.1,2,3,4,5 They need continuous, just-in-time
support that includes professional development, mentors, and informal collaborations. In fact, more than
two thirds of teachers say they would like more technology in their classrooms, 6 and roughly half say that
lack of training is one of the biggest barriers to incorporating technology into their teaching. 7 Institutions
responsible for pre-service and in-service professional development for educators should focus explicitly
on ensuring all educators are capable of selecting, evaluating, and using appropriate technologies and
resources to create experiences that advance student engagement and learning. They also should pay
special care to make certain that educators understand the privacy and security concerns associated with
technology. This goal cannot be achieved without incorporating technology-based learning into the
programs themselves.

For many teacher preparation institutions, state offices of education, and school districts, the transition to
technology-enabled preparation and professional development will entail rethinking instructional
approaches and techniques, tools, and the skills and expertise of educators who teach in these programs.
This rethinking should be based on a deep understanding of the roles and practices of educators in
environments in which learning is supported by technology.

Roles and Practices of Educators in Technology-Supported Learning

Technology can empower educators to become co-learners with their students by building new experiences
for deeper exploration of content. This enhanced learning experience embodies John Dewey’s notion of
creating “more mature learners.”8 Side-by-side, students and teachers can become engineers of
collaboration, designers of learning experiences, leaders, guides, and

catalysts of change.9,10 Following are some descriptions of these educator other educators in their
roles and examples of how technology can play an integral part. schools. They now can
connect with other
Educators can collaborate far beyond the walls of their schools. Through educators and experts
technology, educators are no longer restricted to collaborating only with across their communities

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or around the world to expand their perspectives and create opportunities for As of January
student learning. They can connect with community organizations 2017, iEARN
specializing in real-world concerns to design learning experiences that allow has reached
students to explore local needs and priorities. All of these elements make over
2,000,000
classroom learning more relevant and authentic.
students and
In addition, by using tools such as videoconferencing, online chats, and 50,000
social media sites, educators, from large urban to small rural districts, can educators who
are deepening
connect and collaborate with experts and peers from around the world to
their global
form online professional learning communities.
citizen
engagement
through
international
virtual
BUILDING COMMUNITIES FOR EDUCATORS: INTERNATIONAL
networks. By
EDUCATION AND RESOURCE NETWORK (iEARN) FOSTERS GLOBAL
participating in
COLLABORATIVE TEACHING AND LEARNING
these global
Through technology, educators can create global communities of communities of
practice that enable their students to collaborate with students practice,
around the world. Technology enables collaborative teaching educators are
regardless of geographic location, as demonstrated by the global learning with
nature of the Solar Cooking Project organized by earth and the world, not
environmental science teacher Kathy Bosiak. just about it.
Bosiak teaches at Lincolnton High School in Lincolnton, North
Carolina, and is a contributing educator for iEARN, a nonprofit
organization made up of more than 30,000 schools and youth AUTHENTIC LEARNING
organizations in more than 140 countries. iEARN offers technology- Authentic learning
enabled resources and face-to-face workshops for educators that experiences are those that
place learners in the context
enable teachers and students around the world to collaborate on
of real-world experiences and
educational projects.12
challenges.11
Educators can design highly engaging and relevant learning experiences through
technology. Educators have nearly limitless opportunities to select and apply technology in
ways that connect with the interests of their students and achieve their learning goals. For
example, a classroom teacher beginning a new unit on fractions might choose to have his
students play a learning game such as Conceptua Math, Factor Samurai, Wuzzit Trouble, or
Sushi Monster as a way to introduce the concept. Later, the teacher might direct
students to practice the concept by using manipulatives so they can start to develop
some grounded ideas about equivalence.13

To create an engaging and relevant lesson that requires students to use content knowledge and critical thinking
skills, an educator might ask students to solve a community problem by using technology. Students may create
an online community forum, public presentation, or call to action related to their proposed solution. They can
use social networking platforms to gather information and suggestions of resources from their contacts.
Students can draft and present their work by using animated presentation software or through multimedia
formats such as videos and blogs. This work can be shared in virtual discussions with content experts and stored
in online learning portfolios.

A school without access to science labs or equipment can use virtual simulations to offer learners those
experiences that are currently unavailable because of limited resources. In addition, these simulations are safe
places for students to learn and practice effective processes before they conduct research in the field. Just as
technology can enhance science learning for schools lacking equipment, it can enable deep learning once
students are in the field as well. Students can collect data for their own use via mobile devices and probes and
sync their findings with those of collaborators and researchers anywhere in the world to create large, authentic
data sets for study.

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Educators can lead the evaluation and implementations of new technologies for learning. Lower price
points for learning technologies make it easier for educators to pilot new technologies and approaches before
attempting a school-wide adoption. These educators also can lead and model practices around evaluating new
tools for privacy and security risks, as well as compliance with federal privacy regulations. (For more on these
regulations, see Section 5: Infrastructure). Teacher-leaders with a broad understanding of their own educational
technology needs, as well as those of students and colleagues, can pilot the chosen technology with a small
number of students to quickly and rigorously assess the implementation of approach and whether the technology
delivers the desired outcomes. This allows schools to gain experience with and confidence in these technologies
before committing entire schools or districts to purchases and use. Teacher-leaders and those with experience
supporting learning with technology can work with administrators to determine how to share their learning with
other teachers. They also can provide support to their peers by answering questions and modeling practical uses
of technology to support learning.

EVALUATING TECHNOLOGY THROUGH RAPID-CYCLE TECHNOLOGY EVALUATIONS

The emphasis of the role of evidence in the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) provides a unique opportunity
to both use and generate evidence to better make education investments. 14 Education technology is an area
where this opportunity is particularly rich because these technology tools often make it possible to collect
needed data to understand how something is working. Better information about the effectiveness of different
technology tools helps educators and administrators make better investments. However, many school and
district leaders face barriers in generating meaningful evidence on technology tools and other education
investments. They need evaluation tools and processes to conduct low-cost, quick-turnaround evaluations for
the types of students they serve.
The U.S. Department of Education has contracted with Mathematica Policy Research to help schools,
districts, developers and researchers with conducting rapid-cycle quick-turnaround evaluations using the Ed
Tech Rapid Cycle Evaluation Coach. This tool is a free, openly-licensed,web-based platform that provides
stepby-step guidance and analysis dashboards for conducting quick-turnaround evaluations of educational
technologies.
The IES Low-Cost, Short Duration Evaluation program provides funding for projects that produce research
findings that state and district education agencies can use
in making timely decisions regarding the scaling-up or revision of already-adopted
education interventions. The evaluations use randomized controlled trials or regression discontinuity designs
to determine the impact of interventions on student education outcomes and rely on administrative data or
other sources of secondary data to provide measures of these student outcomes.
Quick-turnaround rapid-cycle evaluations will help provide results in a timely manner so that evidence for
effectiveness is available to school and district leaders when they need to make purchasing renewal and
implementation decisions. These evaluations can also inform efforts to continually improve education
technology interventions by helping educators and researchers quickly learn how technologies have affected
student outcomes.

TEACH TO LEAD: DEVELOPING TEACHERS AS LEADERS

Teach to Lead, a joint program of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, ASCD, and the U.S.
Department of Education, aims to advance student outcomes by expanding opportunities for teacher
leadership, particularly opportunities that allow teachers to stay in the classroom. With the help of
supporting organizations,
Teach to Lead provides a platform for teacher-leaders and allies across the country (and around the world) to
create and expand on their ideas.
Teach to Lead participants are invested personally in the development of their teacher leadership action
plans because the ideas are their own. Participants identify a current problem within their school, district, or
community and develop a theory of action to solve that problem. Since its inception in March 2014, Teach to
Lead has engaged more than 3,000 educators, in person and virtually through its online platform, with more
than 850 teacher leadership ideas spanning 38 states. Teach to Lead regional Teacher Leadership Summits

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 brought together teams of teacher-leaders and supporting organizations to strengthen their teacher
leadership ideas, share resources, and develop the skills necessary to make their projects a reality.
Marcia Hudson and Serena Stock, teacher-leaders at Avondale Elementary School in Michigan, identified a
need for teacher-led professional development at their school and created a module for teachers to collect
and analyze student outcome data to drive new professional development opportunities. The teachers now
are holding engagement meetings with teacher-leaders to develop and fund professional development and
data collection further.
Chris Todd teaches at Windsor High School in Connecticut and is a former TeacherLeader-in-Residence for
the Connecticut State Department of Education. Chris’s team developed the Connecticut Educator Network, a
database of teacher-leaders who are readily available to advise on policy development. The network provides
opportunities for teachers to hone their leadership skills through training and policy briefings.

Educators can be guides, facilitators, and motivators of learners. The information available to educators
through high-speed Internet means teachers do not have to be content experts across all possible subjects. By
understanding how to help students access online information, engage in simulations of real-world events, and
use technology to document their world, educators can help their students examine problems and think deeply
about their learning. Using digital tools, they can help students create spaces to experiment, iterate, and take
intellectual risks with all of the information they need at their fingertips. 15,16 Teachers also can take advantage
of these spaces for themselves as they navigate new understandings of teaching that move beyond a focus on
what they teach to a much broader menu of how students can learn and show what they know.

Educators can help students make connections across subject areas and decide on the best tools for collecting
and showcasing learning through activities such as contributing to online forums, producing webinars, or
publishing their findings to relevant websites. These teachers can advise students on how to build an online
learning portfolio to demonstrate their learning progression. Within these portfolios, students can catalog
resources that they can review and share as they move into deeper and more complex thinking about a particular
issue. With such portfolios, learners will be able to transition through their education careers with robust
examples of their learning histories as well as evidence of what they know and are able to do. These become
compelling records of achievement as they apply for entrance into career and technical education institutions,
community colleges, and four-year colleges and universities or for employment.

Educators can be co-learners with students and peers. The availability of technology-based learning tools
gives educators a chance to be co-learners alongside their students and peers. Although educators should not be
expected to know everything there is to know in their disciplines, they should be expected to model how to
leverage available tools to engage content with curiosity and a mindset bent on problem solving and how to be
co-creators of knowledge. In short, teachers should be the students they hope to inspire in their classrooms. 17

CO-LEARNING IN THE CLASSROOM: TEACHER USER GROUPS PROVIDE PEER LEARNING FOR ADULT
EDUCATION EDUCATORS
Recognizing the power of virtual peer learning, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Career, Technical,
and Adult Education has funded projects that have established teacher user groups to explore the
introduction of openly licensed educational resources into adult education. This model of professional
development recognizes that virtual peer learning can support teachers to change their practice and provide
leadership and growth opportunities. The small groups of far-flung teachers work with a group moderator to
identify, use, and review openly licensed resources in mathematics, science, and English language arts..
Reviews referenced the embedded evaluation criteria in OER Commons, a repository of open educational
resources (OER) that can be used or reused freely at no cost and that align to the College- and Career-
Readiness mathematics and language arts and Next Generation Science Standards. They also included
practice tips for teaching the content to adult learners. The reviews are posted on OER Commons and tagged

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 as Adult Basic Education or Adult English for Speakers of Other Languages to facilitate the discovery by
other teachers of these high-quality, standards-aligned teaching and learning materials.

LEARNING OUT LOUD ONLINE: JENNIE MAGIERA, DISTRICT CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER AND CLASSROOM
TEACHER
Planning a lesson on how elevation and other environmental influences affect the boiling point of water,
Jennie Magiera realized that many of the students in her fourth-
grade class in Cook County, Illinois, had never seen a mountain. So Magiera reached out to her network of
fellow educators through social media to find a teacher in a mountainous area of the country interested in
working with her on the lesson..
Soon, Magiera and a teacher in Denver were collaborating on a lesson plan. Using tablets and online
videoconferencing, the students in Denver showed Magiera’s students the mountains that they could see
outside of their classrooms every day. After a discussion of elevation, the two teachers engaged their
students in a competition to see which class could boil water faster. By interacting with students in the other
class, Magiera’s students became engaged more deeply in the project, which led them to develop a richer
understanding of ecosystems and environments than they might have otherwise.

Educators can become catalysts to serve the underserved. Technology provides a new opportunity for
traditionally underserved populations to have equitable access to high-quality educational experiences. When
connectivity and access are uneven, the digital divide in education is widened, undermining the positive aspects
of learning with technology.

All students deserve equal access to (1) the internet, high-quality content, and devices when they need them
and (2) educators skilled at teaching in a technology-enabled learning environment. When this occurs, it
increases the likelihood that learners have personalized learning experiences, choice in tools and activities, and
access to adaptive assessments that identify their individual abilities, needs, and interests.

Connected Educators: Exemplars

Technology can transform learning when used by teachers who know how to create engaging and effective
learning experiences for their students. In 2014, a group of educators collaborated on a report entitled, Teaching
in the Connected Learning Classroom. Not a how-to guide or a set of discrete tools, it draws together narratives
from a group of educators within the National Writing Project who are working to implement and refine
practices around technology-enabled learning. The goal was to rethink, iterate on, and assess how education can
be made more relevant to today’s youth.

PRODUCING STUDENT FILMS WITH ONLINE AUDIENCES: KATIE MCKAY: LIGHTS, CAMERA, SOCIAL
ACTION!
In Katie McKay’s diverse, fourth-grade transitional bilingual class, encouraging her students to work together
on a project helped them build literacy skills while simultaneously giving them the opportunity to pursue
culturally relevant questions related to equity.
McKay recognized that her students were searching for the language to talk about complicated issues of
race, gender, power, and equity. To address the competing priorities of preparing her students for the state
test and providing them with authentic opportunities to develop as readers and writers, McKay started a
project-based unit on the history of discrimination in the United States.
Students worked in heterogeneously mixed groups to develop comic strips that eventually were turned
into two videos, one showing micro-aggressions students commonly see today and one about the history of

OFFICE OF Educational Technology 5

 discrimination in the United States. The movie on micro-aggressions portrayed current scenarios that
included characters who acted as agents of change, bravely and respectfully defending the rights of others.
According to McKay, students who previously were disengaged found themselves drawn into the classroom
community in meaningful and engaging ways. While reflect-
ing on this unit, McKay wrote:
“We were not only working to promote tolerance and appreciation for diversity in our community. We
also were resisting an oppressive educational context. In the midst of the pressure to perform on
tests that were isolating and divisive, we united in collaborative work that required critical thinking
and troubleshooting. In a climate that valued silence, antiquated skills, and high-stakes testing, we
engaged in peer-connected learning that highlighted 21st century skills and made an impact on our
community.”18

JUST-IN-TIME LEARNING: JANELLE BENCE: HOW DO I TEACH

WHAT I DO NOT KNOW?

Texas teacher Janelle Bence was looking for new ways to engage and challenge her students, the majority of
whom are English language learners from low-income families. After observing her students’ motivation to
persist through game challenges, she
wondered if games held a key to getting them similarly engaged in classwork. After attending a session on
gaming at a National Writing Project Annual Meeting, Bence was inspired to incorporate gaming into her
classroom. She did not know anything about gaming and so, as is the case for many teachers seeking to
bridge the gap between students’ social interests and academic subjects, she had to figure out how to teach
what she did not know.
Bence started by reading a book about using video games to teach literacy. As she read, she shared her
ideas and questions on her blog and talked to other educators, game designers, and systems thinkers.
Through these collaborations, she decided that by creating games, her students would be required to become
informed experts in the
content of the game as well as to become powerful storytellers.
As she explored games as a way to make academic tasks more engaging and accessible for her students,
Bence found it was important to take advantage of professional learning and peer networks, take risks by
moving from a passive consumer of knowl-
edge to actually trying the tasks that she planned to use with students, and put herself
in her students’ shoes.
Bence shared that “finding a way to connect to students and their passions—by investigating what makes
them tick and bridging [those passions] to academic tasks—
educators are modeling risks that encourage the same behavior in their learners.” 19

BUILDING STUDENT AGENCY: JASON SELLERS: TEXT-BASED VIDEO GAMES

Aware of the popularity of video games among his students, and as a longtime fan of
video games himself, teacher Jason Sellers decided to use gaming to develop his
10th-grade students’ ability to use descriptive imagery in their writing. Specifically,
Sellers introduced his students to text-based video games. Unlike graphics-based
games in which users can view graphics and maneuver through the game by using
controller buttons, text-based games require players to read
descriptions and maneuver by typing commands such as go north or unlock the door
with a key. Sellers decided his students could practice using descriptive imagery by
developing their own text-based games. Using tutorials and other resources found on
Playfic, an interactive
fiction online community, Sellers created lessons that allowed students to play and https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/
eventually create interactive fiction games. Prior to the creation of the games, Sellers’s File:US_Navy_101013-N-8863V-522_Eighth_
class analyzed several essays that skillfully used descriptive imagery, such as David grade_students_from_Mira_Loma_Middle_
School_use_a_ground_tracking_system_during_
Foster Wallace’s A Ticket to
the_11th_annual_Science_and_Techn.jpg

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 the Fair, and composed short pieces of descriptive writing about their favorite locations in San
Francisco.
Students then transferred their newly honed descriptive storytelling skills to the development of an
entertaining text-based game. Because Sellers’s students wanted to develop games their peers would want to
play, they focused on ways to make their games more appealing, including, as Sellers described, “using
familiar settings (local or popular
culture), familiar characters (fellow students or popular culture), and tricky puzzles.” 20
According to Sellers, this project allowed students to work through problems collaboratively with peers
from their classroom and the Playfic online community and motivated them to move beyond basic
requirements to create projects worthy of entering competitions.

Rethinking Teacher Preparation

Teachers need to leave their teacher preparation programs with a solid understanding of how to use
technology to support learning. Effective use of technology is not an optional add-on or a skill that we simply
can expect teachers to pick up once they get into the classroom. Teachers need to know how to use
technology to realize each state’s learning standards from day one. Most states have adopted and are
implementing college- and career-ready standards to ensure that their students graduate high school with the
knowledge and skills necessary to succeed.

New college and career-ready standards include many mentions of technology expectations. Federal, state, and
district leaders nationwide have made significant investments in providing infrastructure as well as devices to
schools. Without a well-prepared teaching force, the nation will not experience the full benefits of those
investments for transformative learning.

Based on recommendations from the field, teacher preparation innovators collaborated with the Office of
Educational Technology (OET) and developed four guiding principles for the use of technology in pre-service
teacher preparation programs that can be found in the Advancing Educational Technology in Teacher
Preparation policy brief. These principles are as follows:

ADVANCING EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY IN TEACHER PREPARATION:

FOUR GUIDING PRINCIPLES

1. Focus on the active use of technology to enable learning and teaching through creation, production,
and problem-solving.
2. Build sustainable, program-wide systems of professional learning and teaching.
3. Ensure pre-service teachers’ experiences with educational technology are program-deep and program-
wide, rather than one-off courses separate from their methods courses.
4. Align efforts with research-based standards, frameworks, and credentials recognized across the field.

Teacher preparation programs across the nation have publicly committed to working toward the four
principles and better preparing its students by giving them the skills needed to meaningfully use technology
in their future classrooms. The Advancing Educational Technology in Teacher Preparation Policy Brief further
details the recommendations for teacher preparation programs. Read the brief at: https://tech.ed.gov/
teacherprep/.

This brief further details the recommendations for teacher preparation programs to better prepare its students to
use technology as a tool to transform teaching and learning experiences in the P-12 classroom as well as
highlights examples of these recommendations in action.

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Schools should be able to rely on teacher preparation programs to ensure that new teachers come to them
prepared to use technology in meaningful ways. No new teacher exiting a preparation program should require
remediation by his or her hiring school or district. Instead, every new teacher should be prepared to model how
to select and use the most appropriate apps and tools to support learning and evaluate these tools against basic
privacy and security standards. It is inaccurate to assume that because pre-service teachers are tech savvy in
their personal lives they will understand how to use technology effectively to support learning without specific
training and practice. This expertise does not come through the completion of one educational technology
course separate from other methods courses but through the inclusion of experiences with educational
technology in all courses modeled by the faculty in teacher preparation programs.

ALIGNING EDUCATION WITH TECHNOLOGY STANDARDS:

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

Pre-service teachers at the University of Michigan School of Education are experiencing the kind of learning
with technology their students will one day know. The curriculum addresses each of the five ISTE Standards
for Teachers21 and aligns with skills from the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. 22 Each standard also has
related course projects designed for teacher candidates to use technology actively to demonstrate their
understanding of the material through practice and feedback. For example, teacher candidates are asked to
design and teach a 20-minute webinar for fourth graders that is based on Next Generation Science Standards
and to design and teach a lesson that uses technology and meets the needs of their learners as part of their
student teaching placement.

PREPARING TO TEACH IN TECHNOLOGY ENABLED ENVIRONMENTS:

SAINT LEO UNIVERSITY

A 2006 survey of Saint Leo University teacher preparation program alumni showed satisfaction with their
preparation with one notable exception—technology in the classroom. As a result, the education department
established a long-term goal of making technology innovation a keystone of its program. Saint Leo faculty
redesigned their program on the basis of the Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge model, in
which pre-service teachers learned to blend content, pedagogical, and technological knowledge in their PK–
12 instruction.23
Faculty developed their expertise with different technologies so that every course models the use of
technology to support teaching and learning. The school built an education technology lab where teacher
candidates can practice using devices, apps, and other digital learning resources. Students regularly reflect on
their experience using technology to increase effectiveness and efficiency as well as its value in the learning
process.
Perhaps most notably, Saint Leo ensures all pre-service teachers have basic technologies available at their
student teaching placements. Each pre-service teacher is given a digital backpack with a tablet, portable
projector, speakers, and a portable interactive whiteboard. A student response system is also available for
pre-service teachers to use in their field placements.

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 ADVANCING KNOWLEDGE AND PRACTICE OF ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGIES: ILLINOIS STATE
UNIVERSITY
Illinois State University’s Department of Special Education is one of the largest special education
training programs in the nation. Recognizing the value of assistive technology in meeting the needs of
each student, the special education teacher preparation program at the University includes an
extensive emphasis on selection and use of assistive technologies.
Classroom learning is brought to life through ongoing clinical and field-based experiences in schools
and at the university’s Special Education Assistive Technology Center. The center provides hands-on
experiences to pre-service teachers enrolled in the special education programs at Illinois as well as
opportunities for teachers, school administrators, family members, and businesses to learn about
assistive technologies. Furthermore, faculty work in partnership with a variety of public, private, and
residential schools to enhance student field experiences and provide opportunities for students to
work with learners with a range of disabilities and in a variety of settings, including rural, urban, and
suburban areas.

BUILDING DIGITAL LITERACY IN TEACHERS: UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND (URI)

A critical aspect of ensuring that young Americans learn appropriate digital literacy skills is equipping
educators at all levels with the same skills. To that end, URI offers a graduate certificate in digital
literacy for graduate students, classroom teachers, librarians, and college faculty. By targeting a
broad audience to participate in the pro-
gram, URI is expanding the number of educators with the professional capacity to help students to
learn, access, analyze, create, reflect, and take action using digital tools, texts, and technologies in all
aspects of their lives.
During the program, students are introduced to key theories of digital literacy in inquiry-driven
learning and given time to experiment with and explore a wide range of digital texts, tools, and
technologies. In collaboration with a partner, they create a project-based instructional unit that
enables them to demonstrate their digital skills in the context of an authentic learning situation.
Throughout the program, students participate in hands-on, minds-on learning experiences;
participants build a deeper understanding of digital literacy while developing practical skills and have
time to reflect on the implications of the digital shift in education, leisure, citizenship, and society.
In its evaluation of the program, URI has found that participants experienced a dramatic increase in
digital skills associated with implementing project-based learning with digital media and technology.
Their understanding of digital literacy also shifted to focus more on inquiry, collaboration, and
creativity.

Fostering Ongoing Professional Learning

The same imperatives for teacher preparation apply to ongoing professional learning. Professional
learning and development programs should transition to support and develop educators’ identities as
fluent users of technology; creative and collaborative problem solvers; and adaptive, socially aware
experts throughout their careers. Programs also should address challenges when it comes to using
technology learning: ongoing professional development should be job embedded and available just in
time.24

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 INCREASING ONLINE PROFESSIONAL COLLABORATION: CONNECTED EDUCATOR MONTH BUILDS
COLLABORATION ACROSS THE COUNTRY
Connected Educator Month, launched initially as part of the U.S. Department of Education’s
Connected Educators project, began with a monthlong online conference that included a centralized
guiding structure, kickoff and closing events, engagement resources, and an open calendar to which
organizations of all types could submit professional learning events and activities. Educators used
these resources and the calendar to create their own professional development plan for the month.
Available activities included webinars, Twitter chats, forum discussions, and actively moderated blog
discussions based on personal learning needs and interests.
In the first year, more than 170 organizations provided more than 450 events and activities, with
educators completing an estimated 90,000 hours of professional learning across the month. More
than 4 million people followed the #ce12 hashtag on Twitter, generating 1.4 million impressions per
day.
Now led by partner organizations from the original Connected Educators project— American
Institutes for Research (AIR), Grunwald Associates LLC, and Powerful Learning Practice—Connected
Educator Month features more than 150 organizations and has provided more than 1,000 events and
activities. Australia, New Zealand, and Norway hosted their own iterations of Connected Educator
Month, and educators in more than 125
countries participated in some way.

PUTTING LEARNING IN TEACHERS’ HANDS: DENVER PUBLIC SCHOOLS PERSONALIZE PROFESSIONAL

DEVELOPMENT
In 2014, 80 teachers from 45 schools engaged in the pilot year of Project Cam Opener, an initiative of
the Personalized Professional Learning team in Denver Public Schools. In its second year with 425
teachers and leaders, Project Cam Opener allows educators to record their teaching with customized
video toolkits and share those videos for self-reflection and feedback within an online community of
practice.
In the program’s pilot year, the first 80 teachers recorded hundreds of videos using tools such as
Swivls, iPads, high-definition webcams, and microphones. The videos were uploaded to private
YouTube channels and shared via a Google+ community for feedback. For many of these teachers, it
was the first time that they had seen the teaching practices of other teachers in their district. The
videos sparked daily conversations and sharing of ideas.
Three measures are used to determine the effectiveness of Project Cam Opener: engagement,
retention, and observation. In the first end-of-year survey, 90 percent of respondents said that taking
part in Project Cam Opener made them more engaged in their own professional learning and growth.
In addition, not a single teacher from the pilot group left Denver Public Schools after their year with
Project Cam Opener (the overall district rate of turnover is 20 percent). Although teacher observation
scores are harder to attribute to this project specifically, the growth of this cohort of teachers
outpaced that of their non–Project Cam Opener counterparts, according to the district’s Framework
for Effective Teaching. As of the 2016-17 school year, Project Camp Opener is committed to
establishing an open community of practice. Therefore any educator in Denver Public Schools and
beyond are welcome to participate in the new #ProjCO.

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 MICRO-CREDENTIALING TEACHER COMPETENCIES: KETTLE MORAINE INTRODUCES TEACHER-LED
PROFESSIONAL LEARNING
Kettle Moraine School District in Wisconsin is creating a professional learning environment in which
practicing teachers can be the masters and architects of their own learning. Using the Digital Promise
educator micro-credentialing framework as a guide (for more information on Digital Promise’s micro-
credentialing work, see Section 4: Leadership), teachers in the district take a technology proficiency
self-assessment, which they use as a baseline for their personal professional growth. The teachers
then work by themselves and in collaborative teams to develop specific professional learning goals
aligned to district strategic goals, which they submit to district leadership for approval.
Once these goals are approved, the teachers establish measurable benchmarks against which they
can assess their progress. Both the goals and benchmarks are mapped to specific competencies,
which, in turn, are tied to micro-credentials that can be earned once teachers have demonstrated
mastery. Demonstrations of mastery include specific samples of their work, personal reflections,
classroom artifacts, and student work and reflections, which are submitted via Google Forms to a
committee of 7 to 10 teachers who review them and award micro-credentials.
After the initial successful pilot with 49 teachers, an additional 151 faculty members elected to earn
a micro-credential on personalized learning, which requires them to conduct their own background
research and engage in regularly scheduled Twitter chats as well as blogging, networking, and other
forms of self-guided learning using technology. Many have engaged with teachers across the country,
allowing them to give and receive ideas, resources, and support.

EMBRACING THE UNCONFERENCE: GOING TO EDCAMP

An educator attending an Edcamp event engages in a professional learning experience vastly different
from traditional professional development. Sessions are built on the interests and needs of the people
who attend and are created on the day by using a
cloud-based collaborative application that is open to all (including those unable to participate in
person). Each teacher chooses which sessions to attend on the basis of individual interests or needs.
Because using technology in learning effectively is one of the challenges facing teachers, sessions
frequently are organized around sharing practices and overcoming common challenges when
improving practices around the use of technology. Teachers collaborate to overcome challenges
together, often making connections that lead
beyond the single session or day, as partnerships are formed to engage their students with each other.
The shared documents created at these events become an archive and resource for whoever
attended, in person or virtually.
The first Edcamp was organized in Philadelphia by a group of local educators interested in new
unconference (self-organizing) approaches to a conference for professional learning. The model took
off, and as of January 2016 there have been more than 1000 Edcamps all organized by local educators.
The enormous popularity of the format has led to the formation of the Edcamp Foundation, a
nonprofit organization that will formalize much of the ad hoc support that has been provided to
Edcamp organizers until now.

OFFICE OF Educational Technology 11

Recommendations
Provide pre-service and in-service educators with professional learning experiences powered by
technology to increase their digital literacy and enable them to create compelling learning activities that
improve learning and teaching, assessment, and instructional practices. To make this goal a reality, teacher
preparation programs, school systems, state and local policymakers, and educators should come together in
the interest of designing pre- and in-service professional learning opportunities that are aligned specifically
with technology expectations outlined within state standards and that are reflective of the increased
connectivity of and access to devices in schools. Technology should not be separate from content area
learning but used to transform and expand pre- and in-service learning as an integral part of teacher learning

Use technology to provide all learners with online access to effective teaching and better learning
opportunities with options in places where they are not otherwise available. This goal will require
leveraging partner organizations and building institutional and teacher capacity to take advantage of free and
openly licensed educational content such as those indexed through Learning Registry’s #GoOpen Node
(LearningRegistry.org). Adequate connectivity will increase equitable access to resources, instruction,
expertise, and learning pathways regardless of learners’ geography, socio-economic status, or other factors that
historically may have put them at an educational disadvantage.

Develop a teaching force skilled in online and blended instruction.

Our education system continues to see a marked increase in online learning opportunities and blended learning
models in traditional schools. To meet the need this represents better, institutions of higher education, school
districts, classroom educators, and researchers need to come together to ensure practitioners have access to
current information regarding research-supported practices and an understanding of the best use of emerging
online technologies to support learning in online and blended spaces.

Develop a common set of technology competency expectations for university professors and candidates exiting
teacher preparation programs for teaching in technologically enabled schools and postsecondary education
institutions.
There should be no uncertainty of whether a learner entering a PK–12 classroom or college lecture hall will
encounter a teacher or instructor fully capable of taking advantage of technol-
ogy to transform learning. Accrediting institutions, advocacy organizations, state policymakers, administrators,
and educators have to collaborate on a set of clear and common expectations and credentialing regarding
educators’ abilities to design and implement technology-enabled learning environments effectively.
1
McCaffrey, D. F., Lockwood, J. R., Koretz, D. M., & Hamilton, L. S. (2003). Evaluating value-added models for
teacher accountability. Santa Monica, CA: RAND. Retrieved from http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2004/
RAND_MG158.pdf.
2
Rivkin, S. G., Hanushek, E. A., & Kain, J. F. (2005). Teachers, schools, and academic achievement.
Econometrica, 73(2), 417–458. Retrieved from http://www.econ.ucsb.edu/~jon/Econ230C/HanushekRivkin.pdf.
3
Rowan, B., Correnti, R., & Miller, R. (2002). What large-scale survey research tells us about teacher effects on student
achievement: Insights from the Prospects Study of Elementary Schools. Teachers College Record, 104(8), 1525–1567
4
Nye, B., Konstantopoulos, S., & Hedges, L. V. (2004). How large are teacher effects? Educational Evaluation and Policy
Analysis, 26(3), 237–257.
5
Chetty, R., Friedman, J. N., & Rockoff, J. E. (2011). The long-term impacts of teachers: Teacher value-added
and student outcomes in adulthood (Working Paper 17699). Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research.
Retrieved from http://www.uaedreform.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Chetty-2011-NBER-Long-termimpact-of-
teacher-value-added.pdf.
6
PBS LearningMedia. (2013). Teacher technology usage. Arlington, VA: PBS LearningMedia. Retrieved from
http://www.edweek.org/media/teachertechusagesurveyresults.pdf.
7
B ill & Melinda Gates Foundation. (2012). Innovation in education: Technology & effective teaching in the U.S. Seattle,
WA: Author.
8
Dewey, J. (1937). Experience and education. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster
9
H annafin, M. J., & Land, S. M. (1997). The foundations and assumptions of technology-enhanced student-centered
learning environments. Instructional Science, 25(3), 167–202.
10
Sandholtz, J. H., Ringstaff, C., & Dwyer, D. C. (1997). Teaching with technology: Creating student-centered classrooms.
New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
11
Herrington, J., Reeves, T. C., & Oliver, R. (2014). Authentic learning environments. In J. M. Spector, M. D.
Merrill, J. Elen, & M. J. Bishop (Eds.), Handbook of research on educational communications and technology (pp. 401–
412). New York, NY: Springer
12
iEARN. (2005). About. Retrieved from http://www.iearn.org/about.
13
Utah State University. (2005). National Library of Virtual Manipulatives. Retrieved from
http://nlvm.usu.edu/en/nav/vlibrary.html.
14
For more information, see the Department’s guidance regarding evidence-based decision-making as well as evidence
guidance specific to Title IV programs. U.S. Department of Education (2016). Non-Regulatory Guidance: Using
Evidence to Strengthen Education Investments. https://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/essa/ guidanceuseseinvestment.pdf.
U.S Department of Education, Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (2016). Non-Regulatory Guidance:
Student Support and Academic Enrichment Grants. https://www2.ed.gov/
policy/elsec/leg/essa/essassaegrantguid10212016.pdf.
15
Ching, D., Santo, R., Hoadley, C., & Peppler, K. (2015). On-ramps, lane changes, detours and destinations: Building
connected learning pathways in Hive NYC through brokering future learning opportunities. New York, NY: Hive
Research Lab.
16
Kafai, Y. B., Desai, S., Peppler, K. A., Chiu, G. M., & Moya, J. (2008). Mentoring partnerships in a community
technology centre: A constructionist approach for fostering equitable service learning. Mentoring & Tutoring:
Partnership in Learning, 16(2), 191–205.
17
Kafai, Y. B., Desai, S., Peppler, K. A., Chiu, G. M., & Moya, J. (2008). Mentoring partnerships in a community
technology centre: A constructionist approach for fostering equitable service learning. Mentoring & Tutoring:
Partnership in Learning, 16(2), 191–205.
18
Garcia, Antero, ed., 2014. Teaching in the Connected Learning Classroom. Irvine, CA: Digital Media and Learning
Research Hub.
19
Ibid.
20
Ibid.
21
iEARN. (2005). About. Retrieved from http://www.iearn.org/about.
22
ISTE. (2013). Standards for teachers. Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/standards/standards-for-teachers.
23
TPACK.org. (2002). Quick links. Retrieved from http://www.tpack.org/.