30 Mar2021
By Bart Epstein
The U.S. federal government, states, and school districts collectively spend between $26 and $41 billion per year on education technology materials, according to a new analysis released today by a coalition of education nonprofits led by the EdTech Evidence Exchange. These estimates reflect a troubling lack of understanding about how much the country actually spends on edtech, and also suggest that even according to the lowest estimates, the country spends at least twice the $13 billion figure often previously cited by industry analysts and policymakers.
“We are spending billions of dollars on technology with almost no information about which tools actually work, where, and why,” said Bart Epstein, CEO of the EdTech Evidence Exchange and a research associate professor at the University of Virginia School of Education and Human Development. “We know that technology can have a profound impact on educational outcomes, but thousands of tools and programs used by schools are creating confusion for educators and administrators, not to mention students and parents. When poorly selected or implemented, they waste teacher time and energy and rob students of learning opportunities. Making good on the transformative potential of education technology starts with listening to, and learning from, people who are actually using it.”
25 Mar2021
By Trey Vasquez and James Basham
The Center of Innovation, Design, and Digital Learning (CIDDL) is requesting AACTE members’ participation in the strategic planning efforts by completing a needs assessment survey. All members are invited and encouraged to participate.
This data will inform CIDDL to better understand current technology use and practices of teacher education faculty in special education, early intervention/early childhood special education, and leadership preparation. The outcome report generated will provide valuable national insights and trends and an electronic version of. This report will be provided to all respondents in Summer 2021 at no cost.
23 Mar2021
By Lynn Burdick
There is no doubt the COVID-19 pandemic has caused unprecedented challenges in education. At the University of Illinois (U of I) in Urbana-Champaign, we are facing a lot of those challenges. However, I am trying to be the glass-half-full girl by saying there are a few things we have implemented in these past 12 months that I would like to see us put in place to stay.
When this pandemic is behind us, what best practices should we keep?
Technology for Collaboration, Engagement and Assessment
As we gradually move back into face-to-face classrooms, I know many teachers are ready to put the Chromebooks away! However, some teachers are continuing—and will continue—to apply the new technology skills and tools they discovered during online learning as they return to in-person teaching.
There are so many options for collaboration with creative uses of tools like Jamboard, Google Workspace, Padlet, and so many more. Technologies such as these have helped students who might not contribute when everyone is face-to-face actively participate in online activities. Quick online formative assessment tools have also made it easier for teachers to “take the temperature of the room” and make informed instructional decisions based on individual student learning.
16 Mar2021
By Leslie Ekpe
The Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic brought immediate changes to the normalcy of pedagogy practiced within the classroom. Because of the changes, educators are tasked with establishing innovative approaches to teaching in making the learning process more engaging. For a variety of factors, technology-enhanced learning (TEL) is critical. It is critical not only because it is the current educational standard but also because it can enhance the way we develop the education system (Carrillo and Flores, 2020). The Applying Technology-Enhanced Teaching Strategies to the New Normal in 2021 and Beyond session at the AACTE 2021 Annual Meeting took a deeper dive into the need for more teacher preparation programs that adopt inclusive approaches to educating at all levels of education.
25 Feb2021
By Katrina Norfleet
AACTE is pleased to announce that Teresa Foulger, Kevin Graziano, Denise Schmidt-Crawford and David Slykhuis are the recipients of the 2021 AACTE Edward C. Pomeroy Award for Outstanding Contributions to Teacher Education. The foursome are being recognized for the development of the Teacher Educator Technology Competencies (TETCs) and for their efforts to broadly disseminate the TETCs to teacher educators. The recipients are being presented with the award at today’s virtual AACTE 73rd Annual Meeting Awards Forum.
25 Feb2021
By Katrina Norfleet
AACTE is pleased to announce the University of South Florida (USF) as the recipient of the 2021 AACTE Best Practice Award for Innovative Use of Technology. Ilene Berson, professor of early childhood at USF, is being presented with the award at today’s virtual AACTE 73rd Annual Meeting Awards Forum.
22 Feb2021
By Jerry Berberet
The Journal for Success in High-Need Schools, is seeking articles and columns for its Volume 16, Number 2, Issue theme – “Education in a Pandemic Age: Evolution or Transformation?”
The COVID-19 pandemic is the latest and by far the most severe of several pandemics (e.g., HIV, SARS, MERS, Ebola) global society has experienced in recent decades. COVID-19 has dramatically affected all sectors of education and society, including teaching and learning; how schools are structured; student, teacher, and parent/family relationships; and has thrust eLearning front and center in all aspects of education. In shuttering virtually all schools and colleges and with nearly all students “sheltering in place,” COVID-19 transformed, at least in the short term, the trajectory of the decades-long evolution of online and distance learning. As teachers scramble to develop their classes online and schools struggle to make technology more widely available, families must adjust to new realities with children at home. Already there are wider impacts on work, leisure, and family life, not to mention jobs, careers, social organization, governance, international relations, and the global economy. The timing and magnitude of these changes are open to speculation, but it appears that at some level they will be long lasting, even as the duration of COVID-19 and the likelihood of future pandemics on our complex, highly interactive Earth society are unclear.
22 Feb2021
By Laura Geringer and Jacqueline Rodriguez
CoSN, the national association of school district technology leaders, recently released two reports, Driving K-12 Innovation: 2021 Hurdles + Accelerators and Driving K-12 Innovation: 2021 Tech Enablers. The Driving K-12 Innovation reports capture the top nine topics (challenges, mega-trends, and tools), according to an advisory board of approximately 100 school leaders, technologists, educators, and changemakers. AACTE was proud to serve on the advisory board that supported the development of the report for the second year in a row.
Through the Driving K-12 Innovation series, CoSN continues its commitment to sharing high-quality trend reports that support the use of emerging technology in K-12 education to transform learning. In this initiative, a global advisory board of K-12 leaders, practitioners, and changemakers engages in discourse about the major themes driving, hindering, and enabling teaching and learning innovation at schools. Their work is divided into three steps: an initial survey to select the topics for discussion; discussion; and a concluding survey to capture the final thoughts from advisory board members and discern the top topics to feature in each publication. (Learn more at cosn.org/k12innovation.)
18 Feb2021
By Jon Clausen
As we head toward the one year mark of the onset of the pandemic, there are many lessons learned in how we prepare candidates to use technology in education, however, there is still much to discover. At AACTE 2021 Annual Meeting, the AACTE Committee on Innovation and Technology will be presenting a Deeper Dive session, “Applying Technology-enhanced Teaching Strategies to the New Normal in 2021 and Beyond” on Thursday, February 25, 11:15 a.m. – 12:30 p.m., that looks back at the past year and how teacher education programs have responded to preparing candidates during this time. The session will also focus on how programs are moving beyond the current health crisis and how they are preparing candidates to use technology in ways that support teaching and learning to enter face-to-face, remote, and hybrid classroom environments.
In the spring of last year, when school doors closed and learning went online due to the pandemic, many school districts were left flatfooted in trying to tackle this new emergency instructional situation. Not only did they face infrastructure, access, equity, and professional development challenges, but perhaps more importantly, student engagement in the learning process was lost or disrupted in significant ways.
16 Feb2021
By Caroline Forrest and Cori Woytek
This is the second article in a two-part series. Read the first part, titled “Video Observation Improves Teacher Preparation and Enhances Collaboration.” Authors Caroline Forrest and Cori Woytek will be presenting a live Q&A session at the 2021 Annual Meeting, “Using Video Across Diverse Settings to Provide Meaningful Feedback & Facilitate Reflective Conversations,” Thursday, February 25, 1:30 – 2:30 pm.
Caroline Forrest
Cori Woytek
Many teacher preparation programs have faced unprecedented challenges this past year because of COVID-19. Schools have moved to online instruction and in-person support of student teachers has become difficult, if not impossible.
In response to the crisis, many institutions have incorporated videoed observations and feedback as part of their programs—a move that our teacher education program here at Western Colorado University took four years ago prior to the pandemic.
Fortunately, having a video feedback structure in place has enabled us to continue to support our residents – and continue to provide them with effective, rich, and applicable feedback – during this time.
08 Feb2021
By Megan Reister, Heather K. Olson Beal, Tracy Ensor, Emily Regan Wills, Mary Ellen Cashen and Shelby Gull Laird
In Part 1 of this article, the authors talked about how as teacher preparation program professors in different areas of the United States, they managed to still provide valuable, worthwhile, and innovative professional development for their preservice educators and graduate students who are in-service teachers, despite the myriad ways in which COVID-19 derailed the spring semester.
In Part 2, the authors share the feedback from their students who participated in the virtual professional development.
We, six collaborators, banded together to provide professional development for pre- and in-service teachers’ professional learning experiences during their transition to emergency remote teaching (Hodges et al., 2020) through a self-initiated professional learning community (SIPLC) (Pinnegar & Hamilton, 2009). Adopting this widely practiced research method among teacher educators (Hamilton & Pinnegar, 2013), the collaboration aimed to deepen the understanding of preservice and in-service teachers’ experiences in the SIPLC as they transitioned to remote teaching under the pandemic (DuFour & Eaker, 1998; Song et al., 2020) using Zoom recordings.
05 Feb2021
By Jon Clausen, Lisa Dieker, Liz Kolb, Michael McVey, Robert Moody and David Slykhuis
The AACTE Committee on Information and Technology will host a Deeper Dive session at the AACTE 2021 Annual Meeting, “Applying Technology-enhanced Teaching Strategies to the New Normal in 2021 and Beyond” on Thursday, February 25, 11:15 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. The committee members offer a preview of the panel discussion in the following article.
Over the past year, educators have learned much about technology in teacher education. Technology has become the classroom and often the location of field placements. While many of these learnings were forced due to the pandemic, lessons learned can be carried forward into 2021 and beyond to create improved responsive teacher preparation programs in the future at all levels of education. As a result, the AACTE Committee on Innovation and Technology Committee is offering a Deeper Dive session that includes teacher preparation experts discussing the lessons learned from remote learning and ways to move forward post-COVID with technology in teacher preparation. The Deeper Dive session will include panelists from a wide variety of teacher preparation institutions to discuss their particular lessons learned from the challenges of the pandemic. Furthermore, our panelists will share how we can move forward in teacher preparation to prepare new and veteran teachers to teach with technology in 2021 and beyond. Our panelists include the following:
05 Feb2021
By Caroline Forrest and Cori Woytek
Authors Caroline Forrest and Cori Woytek will be presenting a live Q&A session at the 2021 Annual Meeting, “Using Video Across Diverse Settings to Provide Meaningful Feedback & Facilitate Reflective Conversations,” Thursday, February 25, 1:30 – 2:30 pm.
Providing resident teachers with meaningful feedback to improve their instructional practices is—and always has always been—a hallmark of our teacher education program here at Western Colorado University. Through the use of video coaching, which we implemented four years ago, we’ve been able to ensure this feedback is even more effective, rich, and applicable.
01 Feb2021
By Megan Reister, Heather K. Olson Beal, Tracy Ensor, Emily Regan Wills, Mary Ellen Cashen and Shelby Gull Laird
In Part 1 of this article, the authors talk about how, as teacher preparation program professors in different areas of the United States, they managed to still provide valuable, worthwhile, and innovative professional development for their preservice educators and graduate students who are in-service teachers, despite the myriad ways in which COVID-19 derailed their spring semester.
Many years ago, during a class on educational administration in my [Megan Reister] master’s program, a guest speaker shared an inspirational mantra he lived by as principal of a large elementary school. He shared the quote, “Prior planning prevents poor performance!” and then went on to explain how he incorporated intentional planning, thoughtful conversations, and open communication with colleagues and staff at his school to create an atmosphere of intentionality and accountability within and outside the classrooms.
As a professor of special education and early childhood education in Ohio, that expression came to mind more than once as I experienced the tumultuous second half of a semester that no one could have predicted or planned for thanks to COVID-19 in Spring 2020. No one could have prepared for what occurred—schools closing, moving to remote teaching, working full-time from home while also managing children at home full-time without the usual supports. One could hardly be faulted for poor performance no matter how much planning happened on the fly. I could only shake my head as I thought back on that statement about planning and performance that made such an impact in my early years of teaching in early March when the news broke that the university was taking a week to figure out how to move to online teaching for the next month and then again, once plans were changed and it was determined the whole spring semester would be moved to online learning.
29 Jan2021
By Ji Soo Song
ISTE has released its newest policy report, “From Crisis Management to Sustained Change: States Leading the Future of Learning With the ISTE Standards.”
Fueled by the rapid transition to online and blended instruction in response to COVID-19 and continued need to equitably improve student outcomes, educators, and leaders across the country have faced an unprecedented challenge to design, implement, and scale learning strategies made possible through technology. This challenge also presents a new opportunity, as systems and strategies used to address COVID-19 can also propel our schools forward towards the future of learning and better meet students’ and educators’ needs.
