As part of our U.S. Department of Education Ready to Learn Grant, HITN/ELC is developing a Higher Education Partnership Initiative with the purpose of looking at the preparation of pre-service and inservice teachers of young children to use digital media as one way to engage them and provide an integrated approach to teaching and learning.
The first meeting related to this Initiative will bring together a group of 12 distinguished early childhood faculty members involved in professional preparation to learn about existing approaches to teacher training and professional development in the field of early childhood and develop a vision of improved early childhood teacher preparation and professional development in the digital age. The facilitated sessions for the Symposium will help to:
HITN/ELC is extremely honored that Erikson Institute and the TEC Center are collaborating to host our first event. The founder and interim President, Barbara Bowman, has been very supportive of our efforts. The Symposium has been coordinated through Chip Donohue, who is the Dean of Distance Learning and Continuing Education, as well as the Director of the Technology in Early Childhood (TEC) Center at Erikson. Chip is also a member of our HITN/ELC National Advisory Board. We have also had the pleasure of working with Amanda Armstrong, the program coordinator for the TEC Center at Erikson Institute. National Advisory Board member Dorothy Strickland will also be a participant in the Symposium.