Presented by Erin Mote, Co-founder and Executive Director, InnovateEDU; Dan Cogan-Drew, Co-founder and Chief Academic Officer, Newsela; Diane W. Doersch, Director of Technology, Verizon Innovative Learning Schools Program, Digital Promise; and Dr. Courtney Teague, Director of Professional Learning Content and Learner Experience, Verizon Innovative Learning Schools Program, Digital Promise Global
Moderated by Sierra Noakes, Research Project Director, Lifelong Learning Pathways, Digital Promise

Sponsored by Digital Promise

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Closed captioning will be added to the recording within 2 weeks of the live presentation. Get a CE Certificate for this edWebinar Learn more.

Even though many of us have returned to the classroom, COVID has sparked an intricate and lasting relationship between teaching, learning, and edtech. As a response to the needs of educators to understand how to make their edtech more accessible to all students, Educating All Learners Alliance (EALA), an organization dedicated to equity for complex learners, was formed and stepped up to curate resources. Its free Tech Tool Library, for example, is designed for educators to understand how to turn on the accessibility features that already exist within the tools they are using in the classroom, explore new accessible edtech products, and help schools and families find better solutions to meet their learners’ unique needs.

This edWebinar features two EALA co-founding organizations, Digital Promise and InnovateEDU, as well as Newsela, an edtech tool to promote inquiry-based learning with inclusive content, to discuss the role we are asking tech to play, why it is important to consider the whole child and their learner variability, and how teachers can become part of the school or district’s edtech decision-making process.

A Learner Variability Project national survey of American public school parents and teachers found that teachers more comfortable with edtech were significantly less likely to say the pandemic has worsened their ability to work with each student’s learner variability. Yet, as our speakers address, before developing a comfort with edtech is the need to understand the why within each student—their variability that can change over time and context.

In this edWebinar, we discuss:

• How equity, accessibility, and supporting the whole learner gives products more opportunities to address the needs of the full diversity of learners
• Resources for teachers on how they can enable features that make tools they use more accessible
• Access to clear and trustworthy information about edtech to ensure teachers can easily find tools that align with their priorities
• Internal school district decision-making processes for tech tool selection

This recorded edWebinar is of interest to preK-12 teachers, librarians, school and district leaders, ELL educators, and those involved in the edtech community. 

About the Presenters

Erin Mote is the executive director of InnovateEDU and co-founder of Brooklyn Laboratory Charter School (LAB). She leads InnovateEDU and its major projects including the development of Cortex, work on data interoperability, an urban education fellowship to diversify the teacher pipeline, and supports for LAB’s growth. She has spent much of her career focused on public service and expanding access to technology in both the United States and abroad. Her work spans private sector collaborations and groundbreaking initiatives with Intel, Cisco, Google, and Mozilla, as well as work with leading U.S. government technology partnerships. Erin served as the founding chief of party for the USAID Global Broadband and Innovations Alliance and has worked on numerous projects with the U.S. Department of State and the White House. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two children and bleeds maize and blue as a graduate of the University of Michigan.

Dan Cogan-Drew brings over 20 years of professional experience spent working towards a more perfect union of teaching, learning, and technology. Most recently, Dan was the founding director of digital learning at Achievement First Public Charter Schools, where he spearheaded the integration of digital learning technologies across 22 schools, including flipped classrooms, mobile learning, and 1:1 computing. He began his education career with Teach For America and went on to teach in public and private schools, as well as in the U.S. Navy. He holds degrees from Wesleyan University, Brown University, and Tufts University.

Diane W. Doersch is the director of technology with the Verizon Innovative Learning Schools (#DPVILS) Program at Digital Promise. She was formerly a chief technology and information officer of a large Wisconsin school district. As a former teacher, she has been involved in education for over 34 years. Diane holds a master’s degree in educational technology from Lesley University and has her Certified Education Technology Leader (CETL) National Certificate from CoSN. Diane was a founding member and President-Elect of the WISEDash Local Consortium, a group of Wisconsin school districts that built their own data warehouse. She is currently President of Northeast Wisconsin Women in Technology (WIT), an organization devoted to attracting, educating, and supporting women in the field of technology. She also serves on the Consortium for School Networking’s (CoSN) Board of Directors and on the Board of Directors for the #EquityEDU nonprofit. Diane is passionate about providing technology and opportunities for ALL students to be college, career, and community ready.

Dr. Courtney Teague is the director of professional learning content and learner experience with the Verizon Innovative Learning Schools (#DPVILS) Program at Digital Promise Global. She collaborates across school districts, external partners, and Digital Promise Global to help craft a synchronized approach to defining instructional strategy and approach to instructional tech coaching, mentoring, professional learning, and efficiency. Prior to Digital Promise, she served as a technology training integration specialist, special education teacher, and a digital learning system administrator on assignment at McKinsey & Company. She also is the author of How to Win Students and Inspire Them and she serves as a contributing blogger for various educational think tanks. Dr. Teague‘s current research focuses on coaching; diversity, equity, and inclusion; powerful instructional technology use; and leadership development.

Dr. Teague holds a Bachelor of Science degree in collaborative teaching, a Master of Public Administration from Troy University, an Education Specialist in brain-based teaching from Nova Southeastern University, and a doctorate in instructional technology and distance education from Nova Southeastern University. She is also a certified executive coach and Prosci Certified Change Practitioner.

About the Moderator

At Digital Promise, Sierra Noakes partners with education leaders and nonprofit organizations to create transparency about edtech quality. By identifying and co-designing standards for the edtech industry, educators can more efficiently sift through their edtech options to find tools that will support their unique learners. Prior to joining Digital Promise, Sierra was a teacher in Brooklyn, New York. Sierra earned her master’s in education policy and management from Harvard Graduate School of Education and received her B.A. in government from Claremont McKenna College.

Closed captioning will be added to the recording within 2 weeks of the live presentation. 

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Digital Promise was created with the mission to accelerate innovation in education to improve opportunities to learn.