Preparing for Technology Integration: Mary Jane Warden

Preparing for Technology Integration: Mary Jane Warden

Continuing the series of interviews with technology directors and integration specialists, who give their "state of the union," and their views on education technology in the future.

Mary Jane Warden, Technology Director at Lincolnwood School District 74

“We have come to a time where technology integration is more about the conversations and connections. It’s a more interactive environment with Web 2.0—blogs, wikis, comments, discussion boards. It is much more global with Skype or ooVoo. It is much more personal with smart phones and easy, on-the-run access to information. It’s more collaborative with Google Docs and cloud computing. Professional development in this day and age is also much more interactive and personal using these technology tools and capitalizing on them to create robust learning environments. Our online resource has kept up with the times. We constantly can go to the site and access how-to’s on relevant topics.”

“The next ten years will be the age of ‘me-computing’—people having their own personal learning networks. If our resource can be a venue where you can connect with other people who are trying to learn the same things you are as a professional in education, then this will be a powerful 'place' where educators can share ideas, learn from one another, and take advantage of the ‘intelligence of crowds.’”

P.D. Tips courtesy of Atomic Learning