CITE Journal - Editorial

The CITE Journal is published by the Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education (SITE) and is one of the more tangible products of a consortium referred to as the National Technology Leadership Coalition (NTLC). This consortium was established to provide a forum for collaboration across teacher educator associations. Its membership includes SITE and the following charter organizations:

In addition to providing an editorial oversight for their respective sections of the journal, associations in the NTLC provide leadership for SITE committees and send representatives to an annual autumn retreat—the National Technology Leadership Summit.

Last year Debra Sprague published an editorial in CITE Journal that asked the question, “Are We Talking to Ourselves” (2004, Vol. 3, Issue 4). This editorial called for increased dialog between the educational technology associations such as SITE and ISTE and the teacher educator associations. During the past year, the NTLC has taken up her challenge. A number of the activities of the NTLC have resulted in increased interactions across professional associations, many of them stemming from dialog occurring at the most recent National Technology Leadership Summit, held at the Library of Congress.

One activity involves identification of a proactive approach to a research agenda for educational technology. This discussion began as a dialog among the editors of the relevant technology journals at the summit. A keynote panel was held at SITE 2005 in Phoenix, Arizona, to continue the discussion, followed by a panel at the 2005 American Educational Research Association meeting in Vancouver.

Continuation of the dialog is scheduled for a panel at the 2005 National Educational Computing Conference in Philadelphia. Editorials addressing this important topic have been published in the spring 2005 issues of the Journal of Research on Technology in Education and the Journal of Computers in Teacher Education.

A dialog across conferences, journals, and professional associations is an important outcome of the coalition. The CITE Journal stands at the center of this dialog by virtue of its collective sponsorship by participating associations, and we will be sure to provide periodic updates as the discussion continues.

Collective identification of best practices is another important mechanism for professional dialog. The second round of Technology Leadership Awards were presented in fall 2004.

The CITE/JTATE Technology Leadership Awards were established to recognize exemplary uses of technology to teach content in teacher education programs. The Technology Leadership Awards review panel (see appendix) includes editors from the CITE Journal (which includes representation from a broad array of professional associations), as well as reviewers from our sister publication, the Journal of Technology and Teacher Education (JTATE).

The primary objective of the Technology Leadership Awards is to identify and encourage innovative uses of technology that prepare teachers to enhance student learning of content (e.g., mathematics, science, English, social studies, etc.). The focus is on instructional applications rather than uses of technology that facilitate administrative tasks in the classroom.

Nominees for the awards each submitted a three-page description of their innovative technology use, as well as online resources and student work samples. Evaluations of the nominations focused on uses of technology to teach subject-specific content or pedagogy, student-centered uses of technology, innovations within the educational context, and demonstrated uses of technology by preservice teachers.

The selection panel, comprised of reviewers from a broad array of disciplines, selected one winner in each of three categories:

Use of Technology to Teach Content in a Methods Course
Alec M. Bodzin, Lehigh University
In the context of course instruction on inquiry-based pedagogical practices in the classroom, Dr. Bodzin has his students evaluate various Web-based science inquiry projects and then create their own.

Use of Technology to Teach Content in an Introductory Technology Course
David Whittier, Boston University
Dr. Whittier partners preservice teachers in his introduction to technology lab with supervising classroom teachers during a prepracticum field experience so they can develop Web sites tailored to the in-service teacher’s curriculum needs.

Use of Technology to Teach Content in a Student Teaching Experience
Cheryl Lemon, Gateway Regional High School
Cheryl Lemon, currently a first-year teacher, took advantage of every opportunity to integrate technology into her science instruction during her student teaching experience – both with honors biology students and with students who struggle to be successful in academic settings.

We are pleased to provide descriptions of these exemplary uses of technology in the General section of this issue of CITE Journal. We hope that you will find the online resources and examples of student work provided to be useful as a starting point for dialog and best practices.

This year we have added a new feature to give our readers access to additional innovative uses of technologies. The Gallery of Exemplary Practices includes descriptions of nominations that received the highest scores from the award jury:

The editors of the CITE Journal are soliciting follow-up commentaries to encourage ongoing dialog on this topic. If your teacher education program is engaged in similar practices, we would encourage submission of brief commentaries —two- to four-page contributions commenting on the innovations highlighted, possibly describing parallel innovations or practice in your own teacher education program.

Another round of awards is slated for 2005. We encourage you to consider nomination of exemplary uses of technology in your teacher education program. We are also seeking nominations for exemplary uses of technology in the following category:

Exemplary Use of Technology to Teach Content by a Novice Teacher During the Induction Years after Graduation
(first or second year of classroom teaching).

Additional information about the next round of nominations can be found at the following URL:

We thank the following members of the selection panel who carefully reviewed each nomination and its supporting materials.

Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education
Glen Bull and Lynn Bell, Co-Editors

Michael Berson
Cindy Bowman
Ann Cunningham
David Hicks
Mark Hofer
Gladis Kersaint
John Lee
Cathy Loving
Natalie Milman
Carol Stuessy
Denisse Thompson
Carl Young

Muhammad Betz
Sue Espinoza
David Geelan
David Gibson
Marsha Gladhart
Jeffrey Kenton
Beverly Klecker
Cher Ping Lim
Margaret Lloyd
Monique Lynch
Chrystalla Mouza
Priscilla Norton
Kate Popejoy
James Telese