Making content ‘king’ is Vermont’s crowning achievement in ed-tech integration

As educational technology moves steadily into the 21st century, we're seeing positive shifts occurring in how Vermont teachers and school leaders think about technology and learning. Educators have become more tech savvy and more cognizant of the ways technology best helps instruction, and offering more mobile access to technology has become a growing trend in our schools. Along with this "mobility influx," there has been a concerted effort at both the state and local levels to tie specific content areas and technology together more closely. Vermont's VTcite and the 21st Century Classrooms project have helped spur this effort.

For many years, Vermont's ed-tech initiatives have tried to involve more classroom teachers. Not just the "tech-savvy" ones, but also those who might have an interest in technology tools, but who haven't found a connection to their particular content area. This has been a challenging problem. Teachers are limited in the amount of time they have to spend outside of the classroom, so any professional development directed at them must be relevant and provide an immediate impact on their instructional practices. Time and again, the same faces were attending our integration-focused conferences, taking advantage of opportunities that focused on technology. Vermont needed a way to involve more teachers who represented multiple core content areas.