Connecticut drops Educational Technology from teacher preparation

Concerned parents take note: the Connecticut State Department of Education has omitted Educational Technology as a requirement in its revised regulations for teacher preparation programs.

As a consequence, your child’s teacher may have no formal training in engaging and effective uses of technology in education.

This is significant, as other states have had well-developed standards, academic requirements and corresponding certifications in place for teachers for over a decade.

To see how neighboring state initiatives compare, just Google the words “Educational Technology” for Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island.

Then try the same exercise for Connecticut, which though purporting to subscribe to the National Educational Technology Standards (ISTE-NETS), does not list them, nor assessments for demonstrating student mastery, nor teacher certifications in the specialty.

In 1998, Connecticut ratified General Statute 10-145a(e), that requires students in collegiate teacher preparation programs to take at least one course falling under the catch-all term “educational technology.”

This was a step in the right direction, but compared to other states in the last 10 years, little progress was made in integrating technology into the curricula of Connecticut K-12 schools.

Today’s students are digital natives. Generation WWW has a comfort level with technology, having grown-up with the Internet, social media, HD TV, iPods and cell phones, to name a few. They require and expect multimodal forms of instructional delivery. That is why the omission in the new regulations is absolutely a step in the wrong direction.

If this upsets you, and it should, contact members of the Connecticut State Board of Education, the Commissioner of Education, the State Regulatory Board, the Attorney General and the newly elected Governor. Request that they restore educational technology to its rightful place in the curriculum, and then expand upon it as other states have done. Visit http://techregs.org for further information.

Jerald D. Cole

Educational Technologist

Posted Jan. 15, 2011