About the Emerging Technologies Task Force Project Matrix

Ferdi and I were asked to chair the ISTE Emerging Technologies Task force since we are both such gadget geeks and champions of the use of emerging technologies to promote teaching and learning. We now have a team of members including a group from the ISTE SIGTC.

The goal of the task force is to create a database of contributions from educators highlighting their use of emerging technologies in their teaching. In order to make this useful for everyone, the collection level of data is deep. The database is online, and, as you can see here, the demographics that are collected include grade level, size of district, and type of network connections to allow users to search for an emerging technology that might work in their circumstances, too.

The goal is to provide ideas about emerging technologies for all grade levels, school sizes, and budgetary considerations. The database also asks for ideas and thoughts, so we can learn from each other's successes. To organize the content and make it manageable to both enter and search, Ferdi came up with the first draft of a matrix, and we worked through until we had the Overview model you see here.

Each database entry will target only one bubble on the Overview. If an item can be used for more than one bubble, we are asking users to enter the item twice, choosing a different category each time.|

The three umbrella categories are Organizational Capacity, Process Management, and Operational Capacity.

Organizational Capacity, illustrated here in pink, includes human resources needed and professional development ideas utilized to use emerging technologies effectively.|

Process Management, in green, is the big umbrella of curriculum and instruction including information literacy tools, productivity and creation
tools, learning management systems, and instructional media tools. This section is the tools used to directly support teaching and learning.

Operational Capacity, in yellow, is all the stuff that makes it work, including network security, data management, and the huge area of infrastructure management. As schools begin to depend on Internet access more and more for daily operations, we need all the suggestions we can get!