What do we really mean by technology integration? How is technology integrated into our learning culture? In what ways does it enrich and deepen our teacher education program? Come to the YTE seminar to learn more about the Scarfe Digital Sandbox, an initiative of the Teacher Education Office, Education Library and Educational Technology Support. Jo-Anne Naslund and Yvonne Dawydiak, the initiators of the Sandbox Sessions will lead this seminar.
Our goals for technology integration were central to the Scarfe Digital Sandbox. However, the ways these goals are implemented within the teacher education program can be done in a variety of ways.
In keeping with Neville Scarfe’s expertise as an early childhood educator and given his love and strong belief in the value of play, we named our technology play space after him and the idea of a sandbox carried with it the idea of an imaginative, constructivist and serendipitous social play and learning space.
Our goals for technology integration in the teacher education program include the following. We want to:
- Foster a love of technology and learning about technology so that faculty and teacher candidates engage with technology in playful and pedagogically thoughtful ways.
- Offer constructivist learning spaces where it was possible to explore technology in meaningful and relevant ways
- Empower faculty and teacher candidates as they integrate technology into their teaching.
- Create an environment conducive to collaboration, peer coaching and mentoring.
- Maintain and develop a culture within our teacher education program where exploration and sharing of technology occurs with colleagues and engenders trust and risk taking is experienced.
- Develop our professional learning community and network in order to deepen and enhance our understandings of the role of technology in teaching and learning.
The Overall Objective (of today’s forum): To inform faculty about this past year and our work in the Scarfe Digital Sandbox and how it contributes to deepening teacher candidates’ use of and understandings of integrating technology into teaching.
Learning outcomes: Participants will be able to
- State at least three technology understandings that are critical for teacher candidates
- Reflect on their own use of technology and how they integrate it into their teaching
- Name at least two aspects of integrating technology that faculty would like to learn more about
- Identify at least two ways that would be helpful in supporting faculty as they educate teacher candidates to integrate technology into their teaching.
Where do we go from here?
image: Pixabay.com
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