The Digital Teacher: Promises and Challenges

Students read their texts as e-books on computers, tablets, and even cell phones, and communicate about assignments at a distance electronically. Digital tools help teachers manage their classrooms, communicate with students and parents, enhance learning with videos, simulations, and other multimedia accouterments, and assess student learning. However, despite the vast array of digital resources available, instructional designers are not realizing the full potential of these tools in curriculum, assessment, and teacher professional development materials. In recent years, the availability of online professional development has surged, providing teachers with easy access to high quality professional learning experiences. Much of these online materials are organized as interactive courses with a learning or content management environment presented in a more didactic approach of information transfer and tutorials (Fishman, 2016).