The Highly Connected Teacher

"[W]e need to get beyond calling teachers digital immigrants, as if technology holds a certain code only young people can decipher."

In this month's Educational Leadership, Karen Cator, director of the U.S. Office of Educational Technology discusses the report Transforming American Education: Learning Powered by Technology and a national technology vision for schools.

Cator's plan envisions successful teachers as "highly connected"—to content, data, resources, and people who can push both their own and their students' learning.

The term "highly connected teachers" might be said to describe those in Mooresville Graded School District in North Carolina, where Cator noted on visiting that she often couldn't tell where the front of the classroom was. "The whole space was a learning environment . . . technology was just part of the infrastructure." She adds that technology-rich pedagogy is engaging, well-designed, and personalized for the learner.

Read the full interview, "Transforming Education with Technology: A Conversation with Karen Cator," in the February 2011 issue of Educational Leadership.

Is technology opening doors among educators to improve practice? Is the stereotype of teachers working in isolation no longer relevant?