How do you lead a team to successfully integrate edtech into student research and inquiry?

To lead a team in successfully integrating edtech into student research and inquiry, start by clearly defining your goals and selecting edtech tools that align with those objectives. Provide professional development for your team to ensure everyone is proficient in using these tools. Foster a culture of experimentation and encourage educators to share their successes and challenges. Collaboratively develop and implement lesson plans that incorporate edtech in meaningful ways, emphasizing critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Regularly review and assess the impact of these technologies on student learning, making adjustments as needed to enhance effectiveness.

Guide your team to let learning outcomes direct its technology choices. Will this tool transform learning, or will it just do old things in a flashier way? EdTech is too often chosen because it's new and exciting, not because it creates better learning. New tools can generate excitement, but when the newness fades you're left with the reality of the tool and its affordances. Therefore guide your team to always question how any EdTech will improve learning outcomes. Bonus points if they can apply educational research and best-practices via the technology. Does it foster engagement or social learning experiences? Awesome. Buy it. And super bonus points if they can rule out the tech that just does traditional things in a cooler way.

With so many edtech platforms available, it is important to examine each of them carefully. Often times, these platforms may offer learning experiences and goals that you never considered before. The first thing I do is sign up for a free account, try it out, and then schedule a meeting with the tech representative so I may ask questions.

The ed tech platform has to address the needs of my learners first. If it addresses their needs in an innovative way, then it will address my needs.

Meaningful EdTech integration = playing the long game. You'll have a few teachers who jump in with both feet and need little support, but most will need time and training to shift their practice. (Teaching is already a more-than-full-time job, and shifting their practice is not quick!) My greatest successes in EdTech transformation came from a year-long professional development program I built and ran for years. It integrated educational theory and pedagogical best-practices with classroom application through EdTech tools. Teachers had many weeks to research and test the new tools (which they chose) with the support of myself and other technologists. It allowed reinvention of teaching practice for some people... but it wasn't quick!

Yes, training and support are vital to using edtech for student research. At the middle school level, we help each other out as we use it in our classrooms. We also have students help each other out so that learning to use the tech is part of their learning process.

Its important to start this at the right age. Middle school is a great time to start using edtech platforms to collaborate as students this age are starting to use social media. Edtech platforms are useful because they offer alternatives to communicating that parallel social media.

Edtech platforms offer innumerable opportunities for equity in education. I have found that the right platforms with some teacher support have enabled my learners to drive their own Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). These platforms provide the social space for developing(academic, social, and emotional) learners to bring their best selves to the table. By offering these opportunities to our learners, we are opening up doors for them to practice real-world collaboration.