Welcome to Wise Integration of Technology into Teaching and Learning Environments (WITTLE)

Please read the following to prepare for lab.

Why are we here?

Digital learners require digital teachers for them to become digital citizens in a digital age. We are here because teacher certification requires that future teachers be prepared to model digital learning, and to use digital resources to create digital learning environments that enable digital learners to learn critical curricular content, along with appropriate behaviors, social-emotional skills, mindfulness practices, and attitudes such as a growth mindset. National standards such as ISTE for Educators are the basis for teacher preparation to ensure State adopted standards such as ISTE for Students are taught in our schools.

So in the future, if someone asks why do we have to study WITTLE, tell them it is State mandated, or simple yell ISTE STANDARDS! But rather than teachers simply using technology, we hope you will get a sense of a more sophisticated approach to technology integration.

Digital Teaching

Technology should not be used just because it is there. Instead, the approach we propose for your consideration is the TPACK framework that suggests that you not use technology just for the sake meeting a requirement or making use of something that is available for free.

Your goal for EPSY 5221 should be to wisely integrate additional technology into one or more of your current lesson plans, perhaps something you completed for EdTPA or something you piloted as part of your student teaching. The instruction you select could already involve the use of technology, or it could be a lesson that you loved because it went so well, or one you would like to forget because it needs to be substantially revised. In any of those scenarios, the things you investigate in the EPSY 5221 labs are designed to help you think about what technology can afford for your classroom instruction (including perhaps “flipped” classrooms) and how to take your existing skills with technology, and knowledge of curriculum and teaching, and integrate those to make your lessons more engaging, more effective, and to incorporate 21st century digital work and learning skills for reading, writing, and collaborating online.

Perhaps the SAMR model can help you think about where to begin or more advanced ways to wisely integrate technology into teaching and learning.

Scenario 1. A teacher goes to Newsela (a website for children that offers a variety of high-interest non-fiction articles at different reading levels) and chooses an article for her entire class to read and answer questions about. {This would be a simple Substitution or technology with no direct impact on the nature of the assignment}

Scenario 2. In addition to using Newsela, this teacher also encourages, models and teaches her students to search online for primary sources, unfamiliar words, or additional information on the topic. {This would be considered Augmentation with digital reading and analysis skills}.

Scenario 3. Instead of selecting the topic from Newsela herself, the teacher personalizes the lesson by allowing students to select and investigate a topic of their interest, perhaps differentiating by adding questions and individualized assessments to each students online portfolio or learning management system. {This would be a Modification of the lesson to make it more personalized}

Scenario 4. This teacher encourages students who find topics of their own interest on Newsela and who interrogate additional online resources, to create their own transmedia materials, synthesizing information that they found to communicate their findings to other students, in the style of the Newsela materials. {This would Redefine the assignment to enable new 21st century digital communication (writing/storytelling) skills to be learned and used}

Professional Teacher Standards (CAEP/ ISTE) & CT State Law

The State of Connecticut has officially adopted the ISTE standards for students and for regular educators. We might also mention that ultimately for Master teachers and those seeing to be teacher leaders, there are the more advanced ISTE standards for technology coaches, too.

Neag is accredited by CAEP, a national reviewer, for its professional practices in teacher preparation. Standard #1 (Content and Pedagogy), section 1.5 states: “Providers ensure that candidates model and apply technology standards as they design, implement and assess learning experiences to engage students and improve learning; and enrich professional practice.”

CT State statute (CGS §10-145a, 2012, part e) requires future teacher wishing to be certified to have documented preparation in the wise integration of technology. This is State Law. This law was changed Summer 2019, Public Act 19-128 now includes preparation in computer science. Section 2 d of the bill text now reads:

(d) On and after July 1,2020, any program of teacher preparation leading to professional certification shall include, as part of the curriculum, instruction in computer science, and instruction in information technology skills  as applied to student learning and classroom instruction  that are grade level and subject area appropriate.

This new law is consistent with other efforts to bring Computer Science to all students (CSforAll). In NY there is a goal to do this by 2025. The National Science Foundation has funded educational research in how to best accomplish CSforAll for many years and this funding is continuing.

Enduring Understanding- Student Learning Outcome from this module

Wise integration of technology is not the same as knowing how to use Spreadsheets or SeeSaw or any other specific technology tool. Wise integration requires you to adopt a professional attitude toward considering pedagogy, and your content CCSS standards, and leveraging the many affordances of existing and emerging classroom technologies for your specific teaching practices. You can begin with simple substitutions of digital reading and writing for paper-based assignment, and then progress toward creative uses of technologies. This all builds from your own digital age productivity skills.

Why is this course not about specific tools I can use in my classroom as I begin teaching?

Your Neag Methods classes should certainly contain suggestions (from current technologies) that can enhance your immediate lesson planning. EPSY 5221 is designed to supplement this instruction with issues that are broader than training on specific hardware and applications. This is because the technology you see in use today will be changing and will update quite often in your induction years of teaching. And it will be best if you are prepared to adapt to these changes and to adopt new technologies based on deeper understanding of technology, pedagogy, and content interact. We could, of course, take an app like Book Creator (link to YouTube created by UConn Master’s student) and spend the full course on designing lessons that wisely use the tool to support learning, adding technologies like Kahoot! (for playful competition) or FlipGrid (threaded discussion with video responses) to enhance and embed online assessments, weave those in to Google Classroom and support synchronous and threaded discussions, and explore the nature of digital multimedia collaborative writing. But again, there are some broader topics that might better guide your continued professional learning regarding how best to use technology to create engaging and effective learning environments.

Why are there so many links to resources available in these modules?

EPSY 5221 is a required course for all Neag future teachers, with the exception of the Music Ed students. Because this is a broad service course and not directed specifically toward instruction for the preschool, elementary, middle school, or high school curriculum, it necessarily samples from the full range of instructional applications. You should be cautious, though, not to simply focus on those elements of the resources that seem directly and immediately relevant to your grade level. During your career you may find yourself teaching older or younger learners inside and outside the classroom. More importantly, tools that may appear designed currently for a particular age of learning, often represent a broader category or type of technology application that could be adapted for other learners. Example might include the behavior management strategies of SeeSaw and ClassDojo (designed for younger learners), and mobile tech-based probeware (designed for more advanced learners). Such technology may well be available for different learner during the course of your teaching career.

What exactly counts as a learning technology?

I recently stumbled upon a list of learning technologies that were the focus of this course back in 2004 (more than 15 years ago). We were introducing future Neag teachers to these technologies so they could wisely and strategically integrate them into their teaching. Can you guess what those technologies were? [Reveal List]

Now what would you see as the most common technologies you see integrated into classrooms today?

Finally, what technologies would you anticipate are only emerging now, but will be more widely available for classroom use in the next 5 to 10 years?

Supplemental: Read more about it.

(note: you may have to log in to the UConn Library lib.uconn.edu. to view full text of some articles)

Research shows that teacher who do not view themselves as technologically savvy create barriers to wise integration of technology into teaching:

Abbot, R. C. (2016). Embracing digital technologies in classroom practice: The impact of teacher identity. Australian Educational Computing. 31(2), 1-20.

While availability of technology and tech support remain importance concerns, the biggest predictor of wise tech integration is teacher attitudes concerning technology.

Blackwell, C. K., Lauricella, A. R., Wartella, E., Robb, M., & Schomburg, R. (2013). Adoption and use of technology in early education: The interplay of extrinsic barriers and teacher attitudes. Computers & Education, 69, 310-313.