Integrating Educational Technology into Teaching: Transforming Learning Across Disciplines

Citation

Hughes, J. E., & Roblyer, M. D. (2023). Integrating Educational Technology into Teaching: Transforming Learning Across Disciplines (9th ed.). Pearson.

Chapter Summary

The ninth edition was released by Pearson in July 2022 with a 2023 copyright; Joan E. Hughes is now first author alongside Margaret D. Roblyer, under whose name earlier editions appeared. It has fifteen chapters. Read from the publisher's contents list, they fall into three groups: three chapters of foundations, five chapters on kinds of technology and modes of teaching, and seven discipline chapters that between them cover the twelve content areas the publisher mentions.

The publisher describes a common set of features: a technology integration planning model used to design teaching that responds to instructional, curricular or learning problems; "Technology Integration in Action" scenarios that show how to select and use technology to solve a specific classroom problem; lesson examples aligned with the ISTE standards for students (2016) or state standards; "Teacher Growth" sections with strategies for continued learning, leadership in technology integration and a self-assessment rubric; and "Technology Integration Workshops" for planning, applying and evaluating lessons. New in this edition are features on digital inequity and coverage of planning and teaching in blended and fully online classrooms.

Chapters 1–3: Educational Technology in Context; Theory Into Practice; Learning and Leading for Transformative Technology Integration

The foundation chapters set the context for technology in education, connect learning theory with practice, and present the planning approach for what the subtitle calls transforming learning. The publisher says that learning theories and research-based practices are used to model how to plan, select and evaluate technology use; the third chapter's title also signals the book's interest in teachers as leaders of technology integration.

Chapters 4–7: The Web and Web-Based Content; Instructional Content Software for Student Learning; Design, Analysis, and Creation; Communication, Collaboration, and Making

Four chapters on categories of digital tools: web resources, software that delivers instructional content, tools with which students design, analyse and create, and tools for communication, collaboration and making.

Chapter 8: Blended and Online Learning

The chapter on teaching in blended and fully online settings, an area the publisher identifies as newly expanded in this edition.

Chapters 9–15: Teaching and Learning with Technology in Special Education; in English and Language Arts; for Second and Foreign Languages; in Science, Engineering, and Mathematics; in Social Studies; in Music and Art; in Physical and Health Education

The discipline chapters apply the planning approach to particular subjects. Several cover more than one area (science, engineering and mathematics; music and art; physical and health education), which is how seven chapters reach twelve content areas. Special education has its own chapter.

Key Concepts

Chapters 1–3: foundations

• Technology integration planning: a structured way of choosing technology in response to a defined instructional, curricular or learning problem.
• Transformative technology integration: the subtitle's aim of using technology to transform learning across disciplines.
• Theory into practice: grounding technology decisions in learning theory and research.
• Teacher leadership: teachers developing as leaders of technology integration in their schools.

Chapters 4–8: tools and settings

• Instructional content software: programs that present content or practice to students.
• Design, creation and making: tools that let students produce their own work.
• Communication and collaboration: tools that connect learners with each other.
• Blended and online learning: teaching that combines or replaces face-to-face sessions with online ones.

Chapters 9–15: disciplines

• Discipline-specific integration: matching technology to the aims and practices of each subject.
• Digital inequity: unequal access to technology and its effects on children's educational success, a new focus in this edition.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• A planning framework throughout. The book is organised around a model for deciding when and how to use technology, starting from a classroom problem rather than from the tool. This gives student teachers a method they can transfer to new technologies.
• Wide subject coverage. Seven discipline chapters covering twelve content areas, plus a chapter on special education, let readers in most teaching subjects find examples close to their own.
• Practice built in. Scenarios, standards-aligned lesson examples, workshops and a self-assessment rubric, all described by the publisher, suit a methods course in which students design and evaluate lessons.
• Current concerns. The ninth edition adds attention to digital inequity and to blended and online teaching.

Limitations

• School-focused and American. The lesson examples correlate with the ISTE standards and with state standards, and the book is written for teacher preparation; university teachers and readers outside the United States will need to adapt it.
• Tools date quickly. Chapters organised around kinds of software and web content inevitably age between editions; readers should treat specific tools as examples.
• Little critique of technology. The book's purpose is effective integration. It does not set out to question whether technology should be used, or its commercial and political context.

Where It Fits in the Course

In the educational-technology list, Hughes and Roblyer is the practical teacher-preparation textbook. Neil Selwyn's Education and Technology: Key Issues and Debates is its critical counterpart, asking social and political questions about educational technology rather than how to integrate it; reading the two together gives both the method and the debate. Tony Bates's Teaching in a Digital Age is an open textbook on designing teaching and choosing media and delivery modes, aimed more at post-secondary teaching.

Ruth Clark and Richard Mayer's e-Learning and the Science of Instruction and Mayer's Multimedia Learning set out research-based principles for designing multimedia materials; they are the place to go for the evidence behind the design of digital lessons, at greater depth than a survey textbook. The Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences is a research handbook for students moving into the field's scholarship.

How to Use This Book

The book is written for pre-service teachers in a technology integration or methods course, and is also useful to practising teachers who want a structured approach. Basic computer and internet skills are enough; no earlier course in educational technology is assumed.

A practical reading plan:

• Core: Chapters 1–3 in order, since the planning approach and its grounding in learning theory are used in every later chapter.
• Tools: Chapters 4–8, read with an eye to the tools available in your own school; Chapter 8 is essential for anyone who will teach online or in blended formats.
• Your subject: the discipline chapter or chapters for your teaching subject, and the special education chapter, which is relevant whatever the subject.

Work through the "Technology Integration in Action" scenarios and at least one Technology Integration Workshop, designing a lesson for your own subject and evaluating it. Use the Teacher Growth self-assessment at the start and end of the course to track progress. Read Selwyn alongside to test the assumptions behind the lessons you plan.