I had the honor of being invited to be a panelist during the National Academy of Education (NAEd) Annual Meeting on the plenary panel entitled "Leveraging Technology to Support Diverse Learners," on Friday, November 16th. The Annual meeting of the NAEd occurred right after the fall retreat, which each of us as new postdoctoral fellows attended. During the panel, I presented along with Marcia Linn (NAEd Member and Faculty at the University of California, Berkeley), Kihyun “Kelly” Ryoo (a former postdoctoral fellow and faculty member at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) and Jim Shelton (former Deputy Secretary of the United States Department of Education). We discussed the various ways technology has been used in and could ideally be integrated with formal and informal education. I specifically argued for more attention to interest-driven technologies - including games, social media, making and crafting, and livestreaming - that permeate learners' lives, and how classrooms could be sites for meaningful and critical use of such technologies. I provided some suggestions from research I have done involving critical use of multiple maker tools to diversify learners' interests and uses of crafting and technology. More information about the panel can be found at the NAEd's website here.
