Dr Jane Hunter wins SITE award

Jane Hunter, a lecturer in the School of Education, is in the business of teaching teachers. She also conducts research on how teachers effectively embed new technologies into learning.

In March, Jane attended the Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education (SITE) conference in Jacksonville, Florida. Not only did Jane present at the conference, but she was also awarded a prestigious 2014 SITE Technology Enriched Instruction (TEI) Award.

“The TEI award is a key part of Microsoft’s global initiative to ensure teacher educators in higher education faculties prepare future teachers for enriched technology integration practice in school settings,” explains Jane. “In addition, the award acknowledges models of technological, pedagogical and content knowledge (TPACK) and 21st century learning design in the practice of teacher education.”

Jane received the award as recognition for a project involving field trips to significant sites in New South Wales suitable for excursions for primary school-aged children. “All of my research in the technology integration discipline informs the approach I take to planning for learning in the unit I coordinate at UWS,” she says.

At the conference, Jane presented a paper on findings of her doctoral research titled High Possibility Classrooms: Technology Integration in Action. In the presentation, she shared examples from case studies of Australian teachers’ classrooms, including one in south western Sydney, to explain their knowledge of technology integration and what it looks like in practice in particular contexts.

Proving that learning and teaching extend beyond the classroom, Jane used Twitter to interact with her students and colleagues during the conference in Florida, providing updates on the sessions she was attending and alerting them to cutting-edge resources. “Using social media to connect from a distance was very successful, with many students and colleagues in the School of Education joining in,” says Jane.

Jane is currently writing a book for Routledge about a model of technology integration that has been developed from her doctoral research. The text is titled Technology integration and High Possibility Classrooms: Building from TPACK. It will be published in 2015.