Transforming Learning with New Technologies

 Shows teachers and students how to put new and emerging technologies to use in the K-12 classroom to create highly interactive, inquiry-based teaching and learning experiences―and how to inspire students to learn.

KEY TOPICS:  Teacher Education, Computers and Technology, Education and Teaching, Schools and Teaching, Technology and Teaching, Curriculum and Lesson Plans, Instructional Methods, Professional Learning Network, Digital Citizenship, Blogs and Wikis, Flipped Classrooms, Computers and Apps, Educational Websites, Multimedia Learning

MARKET: New and future K-12 classroom teachers

Robert W. Maloy is a senior lecturer in the Department of Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies in the College of Education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he coordinates the history and political science teacher education programs. He also codirects the TEAMS Tutoring Project, a community engagement/service learning initiative in which university students provide academic tutoring to culturally and linguistically diverse students in public schools throughout the Connecticut River Valley region of western Massachusetts. His research focuses on technology and educational change, teacher education, democratic teaching, and student learning. He is coauthor of six other books: We, The Students and Teachers: Teaching Democratically in the History and Social Studies Classroom (State University of New York Press, 2015); Ways of Writing with Young Kids: Teaching Creativity and Conventions Unconventionally (Allyn & Bacon, 2002); Kids Have All the Write Stuff: Inspiring Your Child to Put Pencil to Paper (Penguin, 1992); The Essential Career Guide to Becoming a Middle and High School Teacher (Praeger, 1999); Schools for an Information Age (Praeger, 1996); and Partnerships for Improving Schools  (Greenwood Press, 1988).  Robert has received a University of Massachusetts Amherst Distinguished Teaching Award (2010), the University of Massachusetts President’s Award for Public Service (2010), a School of Education Outstanding Teacher Award (2004), a University Distinguished Academic Outreach Award (2004) and the Chancellor’s Certificate of Appreciation for Outstanding Community Service (1998 & 1993).

Ruth-Ellen Verock is a senior lecturer in the Department of Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies in the College of Education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She coordinates Bridges to the Future, a one-year intensive master’s degree and teacher-licensing program serving school systems in western Massachusetts. Ruth has been an elementary school classroom and reading teacher in Virginia and Massachusetts. Her academic research focuses on new teacher education, technology in teaching, and community service learning in K―12 schools. She is coauthor with Robert W. Maloy and Sharon A. Edwards of Ways of Writing with Young Kids: Teaching Creativity and Conventions Unconventionally. She received the School of Education’s Outstanding Teacher Award in 2007. She has also served as coordinator of the 2003 University of Massachusetts/WGBY National Teacher Training Institute (NTTI) and was an educational researcher for the 1999―2000 Harvard University Evidence Project.

Sharon A. Edwards is a clinical faculty member in the Department of Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies in the College of Education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Retired from public school teaching, she taught primary grades for 32 years at the Mark’s Meadow Demonstration Laboratory School, a public laboratory school in Amherst, Massachusetts. As a clinical faculty member, she mentors undergraduate students and graduate student interns in the early childhood teacher education, constructivist teacher education, and secondary teacher education programs. Her course and workshop presentations focus on children’s writing, reading, and math learning; curriculum development; instructional methods; and diversity in education. She also codirects the University’s TEAMS Tutoring Project. In 1989, Sharon was the inaugural recipient of the national Good Neighbor Award for Innovation and Excellence in Education given by the State Farm Insurance Companies and the National Council of Teachers of English for her work with young children’s writing. She received her doctor of education degree from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1996. She is coauthor with Robert W. Maloy of two other books: Ways of Writing with Young Kids and Kids Have All the Write Stuff.

Beverly Park Woolf is a research professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She holds two doctoral degrees, one in computer science and one in education. Her research focuses on building intelligent tutoring systems to effectively train, explain, and advise users. Extended multimedia capabilities are integrated with knowledge about the user, domain, and dialogue to produce real-time performance support and on-demand advisory and tutoring systems. The tutoring systems use intelligent interfaces, inferencing mechanisms, cognitive models, and modifiable software to improve technology’s communicative abilities. She is the author of Building Intelligent Interactive Tutors: Student-Centered Strategies for Revolutionizing e-Learning.