Enhancing Learning Experiences!

Education technology has become essential to modern teaching and learning, developing meaningful engagement and inclusivity in classrooms worldwide. Its evolution continues to bridge gaps in accessibility while providing educators with innovative tools to enhance learning experiences. Educators are improving student outcomes by integrating emerging technologies like AI and personalized learning approaches and effectively addressing diverse learning needs. The importance of education technology lies in its ability to transform conventional teaching methods into interactive, impactful practices that empower teachers and students to thrive in today’s connected world.

Renee Dawson, an Educational Technology Consultant, is a dedicated leader in this transformative space. She brings a thoughtful and creative approach to her role, demonstrating a passion for developing professional development programs that empower educators to harness the full potential of technology. Her efforts focus on making technology accessible and practical, enabling educators to create equitable and engaging learning environments.

Renee’s ability to connect with diverse educational communities and her commitment to addressing the unique needs of students and teachers reflect her impactful vision and leadership in shaping the future of education technology.

Design for You Learning, a consulting company specializing in educational technology, is central to these efforts. The company collaborates with schools, educators, and ed-tech platforms through innovative solutions and personalized professional development initiatives to drive meaningful technology integration in classrooms. Design for You Learning plays a key role in advancing technology- enabled education by focusing on tailored support, hands- on training, and ongoing collaboration. Its dedication to cultivating a culture of innovation and inclusivity positions it as a trusted partner for educators striving to enhance learning experiences and outcomes.

Let’s explore Renee’s transformative approaches to advanced education:

Embracing Professional Development Roles

Renee taught special education in various grade levels and subject areas for 15 years. For seven of those years, she primarily worked with students and educators on identifying and implementing assistive technology in the classroom. In 2021, she transitioned into an Instructional Technology Coach role and found that she enjoyed developing and leading professional development for teachers.

Her instructional Technology Coach role was grant-funded, and her position was abolished after funding ran out. She reached out to Ed Tech companies she had connections to through ambassador programs or prior work with them on webinars, blog posts, or podcasts. She found that Screencastify was looking for contract Professional Development Facilitators.

After being recognized for several years as a platform super user and top content creator in her district and the world, she was excited to join their team to show other educators the fantastic features of their platform and the benefits of using video to benefit instruction.

Screencastify isn’t the only company she contracts with for Professional Development Facilitation. She also works with Almanack AI to create onboarding videos and professional development resources for their users and helps establish an ambassador program for the educators who use the platform.

She also recently started a contract position with EliteGamingLIVE, an esports league and STEM learning platform she coached under in her last role. She will work with them and use her experience as a coach for their league to create onboarding and professional development content.

Renee shifted to an independent Ed Tech Consultant because she felt it was best to reach as many educators as possible and impact student learning by providing high- quality professional development and onboarding processes. She enjoys creating engaging, succinct, and valuable content for educators. She thrives in the consulting role because she is constantly learning how to “up her game” and growing in her content creation process based on her experiences and feedback she receives from her work.

Planning for Successful Professional Development

Renee finds the best way to integrate new tools into professional development sessions for educators is to have them interact with the tool as often as possible. She generally has very few slides to show because she has educators use the new tool or platform for most of the session. She approaches her session development with the idea that she has three basic levels of learners in her sessions: speedboats, tugboats, and anchors.

Theoretically, a speedboat needs its path and couldn’t pull an anchor off the bottom of the water without the line snapping. So, she gives her speedboat educators an independent learning activity they can work through at their own pace without being slowed down by the less tech- savvy educators.

For her tugbats, she usually spreads them out evenly among the anchors so that they can help pull the anchors up off the bottom with just a little support. These two groups receive direct training on the tool or platform and many hands-on activities to help them feel comfortable and confident implementing the tool or platform in their classrooms.

She also provides several follow-up classroom check-ins with educators who need more support implementing new technology. She often starts by modeling implementation, then moves to co-teaching with them using the tool and finally observes them implementing the tool independently in their classroom. It takes a great deal of planning on her part, but it results in higher implementation after the initial professional development session.

Personalized Learning for Diverse Tech Skills

She has experienced and keeps in mind that closing the digital divide isn’t just about providing access to devices and internet connectivity—it’s about empowering educators to use technology in meaningful ways that enhance learning for all students. She collaborates closely with educators from diverse backgrounds, especially those serving historically marginalized communities.

Their perspectives are invaluable in designing professional learning that addresses fundamental challenges. Her approach emphasizes ongoing learning and consistent implementation. She focuses on building long-term capacity, not just short-term skills. Her goal is to create a self-sustaining culture of tech-enabled innovation in schools. Some specific ways the focus on digital equity shapes her professional development include:

• Personalized Learning: She recognizes that educators have varied tech skills and contexts. Her professional development sessions offer flexible, personalized learning options rather than one-size-fits- all training.
• Focus on Instructional Design: Renee goes beyond basic tool training to focus on how technology can transform instructional practices. Educators learn to design tech-enhanced lessons that promote higher- order thinking and creativity.
• Focus on Equity-Centered Practices: She explicitly addresses how technology can close achievement gaps and provide more equitable learning experiences. This includes training on Universal Design for Learning principles and educator observations multiple times throughout the school year using the Technology Integration Matrix.

To measure the impact of her professional development and ensure that it is genuinely making a difference, she looks for several indicators during her classroom observations, including changes in classroom technology integration practices, student engagement and learning outcomes – particularly for historically underserved populations, educator confidence and efficacy in using technology, and the development of teacher leaders in educational technology in her building.

As she continues to refine her approach, she is excited about the potential of emerging technologies like AI to personalize professional learning further. However, her core focus remains on the human element – empowering educators to use technology to create more equitable, engaging, and compelling learning experiences for all students. By centering digital equity in her professional development philosophy, she is not just helping to close the digital divide but reimagining what’s possible in education.

Effective Use of AI Tools for Educators

Renee’s favorite session she conducted was on Curipod, an AI tool. She built the entire session in Curipod with interactive questions and fun brain breaks for educators to see how they could implement it in their classrooms. She knew it was successful because multiple educators started using the tool the next day with what they created during the session.

More than one educator completely changed their opinion on AI usage for instruction after seeing what the tool could create for them to use in class in minutes. One educator even booked time for a coaching session on Curipod during her planning period the next day despite initially being against AI usage. Once she experienced that Curipod’s AI features helped save her time and work smarter, not harder, her outlook changed, and it greatly benefited her curriculum implementation.

Creating Engaging Learning Materials for Students

Esports teams and the Minecraft Student Ambassadors programs contribute to student growth in many ways. The two most prominent areas where Renee saw significant shifts in the students who participated were their school attendance and classroom behavior. Last school year, she started a “Lunch Bunch Esports Club” and worked with school administration, counselors, and the social worker to target at-risk students to participate. Students got their lunch, brought it to the esports room, and had the opportunity to game for around 20 minutes daily.

Within one month, the participating students’ attendance increased by 21%, and their suspensions decreased by 27%. From the program’s start in October through the end of the school year, the participating students’ attendance increased by 63%, and their suspensions decreased by 57%. Besides having a space for gaming and connecting with their friends, she also tutored students or remediated curriculum standards as needed to help them maintain passing grades in their core subject classes. She often spent time outside of school creating engaging and interactive learning materials for them to use for remediation or extra practice.

With the Minecraft Student Ambassadors program, she worked with students on their leadership skills and helped them gain the confidence to support Minecraft for Education in classrooms throughout the school. When educators wanted to incorporate a Minecraft lesson in their classroom, she would go through the lesson activities with the students to ensure they knew and understood what the activities entailed and how to support the educator in implementing the lesson and students in completing the activities.

Sustaining Engagement with Themed Social Media Posts

Renee was the Community Manager for Almanack AI but has moved into a content creation role for onboarding, professional development resources, and their ambassador program. Design for You Learning is her consulting LLC.

However, as the Community Manager for Almanack, she relied on a social media planning calendar and scheduling the posts to sustain engagement. She had a theme for each day of the week:

• Motivation Monday: She created a post with a motivational quote that referred to AI use in education.
• Tech Tip Tuesday: She created posts sharing a tech tip for the Almanack platform.
• Women Wednesday: She created posts featuring prominent women leaders in AI education.
• Thoughtfulness Thursday: She created posts that posed a question for followers to reflect on and share their thoughts in the comments or by sharing and adding their thoughts.
• Follower Friday: She created posts spotlighting one of their followers and their contributions to AI in education.

Virtual Teaching and Content Creation Niche

Her creative process is motivated by current trends, TV shows, movies, and whatever the students share that they find engaging. Renee is certified in K-12 special education core content and adaptive learning, as well as having her English as a Second Language and Gifted endorsements.

The knowledge she gained in those programs helped her design content for grade-level standards at differentiated levels to meet the needs of all learners. She has always considered herself creative, so when she started teaching virtually during the pandemic, she found her niche in creating content for her students that she felt other educators would enjoy using and needed in their classrooms.

Continuous Learning for Education Leaders

Certifications in Ed Tech tools help Renee stay at the head of Ed Tech and ensure that she is more than familiar with the tools she provides professional development on or recommends to educators to use in their classrooms. She firmly believes that the best educators, especially education leaders, never stop learning. Regarding the most transformative certification she has completed, she would have to say either her Apple Learning Coach certification or her Microsoft Innovative Education Expert (MIEE) certification.

In the Apple Learning Coach program, she learned how to be a much more effective Instructional Technology Coach. They provided several helpful coaching resources she references as she works with educators and Ed Tech companies. She finds the MIEE certification transformative because there are new learning requirements that she has to complete annually for recertification. Those learning requirements are always timely and incredibly helpful when working with Microsoft products in the education space.

Focusing on Digital Literacy and Diverse Learning

Renee’s work with Title 1 schools has provided valuable insights into addressing the digital divide, shaping an approach focusing on equity, access, and comprehensive support. It’s more than simply providing students with devices. Here are some key lessons learned and advice for educators working towards similar goals:

Ensure home internet access: Many students in low- income areas lack reliable home internet. Initiatives like the Verizon Innovative Learning Initiative and Comcast’s Internet Essentials program can be helpful and feasible solutions. Some districts have also implemented innovative solutions like building WiFi towers to extend district internet to students’ homes, deploying WiFi-equipped buses to create internet hotspots in neighborhoods, and providing free WiFi hotspots to students for home use.

It’s not just about having technology but how it’s used. Educators should focus on:

• Digital literacy education: Integrate comprehensive digital skills training into the curriculum, covering essential computer use, internet safety, and even introductions to AI and its societal implications.
• Diverse learning options: Provide multiple ways for students to access and engage with content, including text, audio, video, and hands-on activities.
• Support families: Offer digital literacy workshops for parents and caregivers, predominantly bilingual or YouTube University-recorded workshops that parents can access on demand.

Renee’s advice for educators working towards similar goals is to assess student access devices and the internet before implementing any new tech initiatives, design curricula and choose tools (especially AI tools) that cater to diverse student populations (including special education and English Language Learners), continue to integrate print materials and offline activities to support learning and prevent digital burnout, develops digital citizenship by teaching students how to use technology responsibly and ethically and explore grants and funding opportunities that can help the technology needs of students.

By taking a holistic approach that addresses access, quality of use, and broader socioeconomic factors, educators can work effectively towards bridging the digital divide in Title 1 schools and beyond.

Aiming for Ed Tech Conference Keynotes

For Renee’s future professional journey, the sky’s the limit! She would love to be a featured presenter or keynote speaker at an Ed Tech conference someday. She plans to continue pursuing contract roles with the companies she values. She supports sharing that love with as many educators as possible, getting them excited and prepared to implement those tools in their classrooms.

She pursued a career in education because she wanted to change how she was taught and how disengaging she found in K-12 education as a student. For most of her classroom career, she lacked the leadership and support needed to completely change the way learning happened in her classroom. In her favorite education philosophy book, “Ratchetdemic,” Christopher Edmin encourages educators to “be your most ratchet educator self.”

This means unapologetically bringing your whole self to the classroom and fully connecting with students from diverse backgrounds by using their cultural references to reach students where they are without compromising intellectual rigor. That was her focus as a classroom educator. Now, as an Ed Tech Consultant, she wants to continue spreading that philosophy to as many educators as possible and providing them with what they lack to make it possible-support to change classroom education from an educator-centered learning environment to a student-centered learning environment.