It is an honor to assume the editorship of Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education-General. I know deeply in my heart that the authors and readers of CITE-General are “my people.” I have been reading articles in the CITE-General for years and published one of my collaborative articles in the Technology Infusion Special Issue in 2023, Vol. 23(1), Design principles for modeled experiences in technology-infused teacher preparation.
I have also been reviewing manuscripts and providing editorial feedback. After serving as a reviewer and on the editorial board for CITE-General, I am now privileged to succeed Dr. Kevin Graziano of Nevada State University as the editor starting January 2024. Kevin has prepared me well for the editorial transition, and I cannot thank him enough for his thoughtful contributions, ongoing service, and meaningful mentorship to the journal and education field. As the new editor, I will continue to oversee and manage rigorous review processes and simultaneously meet deadlines. I am also looking forward to having conversations with authors and reviewers about proposed paper topics and special issues.
CITE-General
The CITE journal was established and jointly sponsored by six professional associations, the Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators (AMTE), the Association for Science Teacher Education (ASTE), the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS-CUFA), the National Council of Teachers of English (ELATE), International Technology and Engineering Educators Association (ITEEA), and the Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education (SITE). The journal aims to move the field of technology and teacher education forward. CITE-General today is a testament to the vision of these organizations to publish online, peer-reviewed, open-access theoretical and research articles that specifically address technology integration in teacher education.
Under SITE’s sponsorship, CITE-General disseminates research on innovative technology integration in teacher education and enjoys a worldwide readership. CITE-General publishes articles with various theoretical paradigms, epistemology, or methods. The journal embraces the field broadly, from all intellectual orientations, and welcomes contributions that constitute scholarly knowledge from the plural communities. Published articles present original empirical research using numerous methods, highlight and critically discuss the theoretical and conceptual frameworks, or engage in disciplinary conversations situated in the field.
Goals for CITE-General
For the next 3 years, I have a few goals for CITE-General. First, I aim to maintain CITE’s rigor in publishing cutting-edge, high-quality research that carries ongoing dialogue about issues that advance the field. I will oversee and manage a rigorous review process and make final decisions on the acceptance or rejection of the articles fully considering peer reviewers’ feedback and my own knowledge and expertise in the field. If the article was rejected, I will provide the author(s) with feedback on how to improve the manuscript or revise it to be a better fit for the next submission. To achieve this goal, I will need help from top reviewers in the field. I encourage scholars in the technology and teacher education field to sign up as reviewers for CITE-General. Please contact me if you are interested or sign up on our website.
Second, I plan to provide scholars with opportunities to start conversations on emerging technologies and topics in the field of educational technology and teacher education. I am open to collaborating with guest editors on special issue calls. Some potential topics are listed here. I am interested in reading manuscripts addressing these topics or working with guest editors to propose special issues.
- Accessible and inclusive technology tools and processes
All students can benefit from the advancements in accessible and inclusive technology tools and processes. Thoughtful enablement improves students’ learning experience and allows them to collaborate on projects. Therefore, preservice and in-service teachers should be prepared to use accessible and inclusive technology tools and processes. Moreover, teacher educators also should learn how to put these tools and processes into practice. Our field needs more empirical articles on this particular preparation, especially research on professional learning for teacher educators.
- Building data literacy for understanding and using student data
With the advancement and wide adoption of technology tools during the pandemic, institutions can collect more student data. Using data to make informed decisions for teaching and learning is a topic for which teacher education programs need to prepare our preservice and in-service teachers (Dunlap & Piro, 2016). Our teachers not only need to build their data literacy to understand the data, but they also need to have the skills for decision-making, for example, using the data analysis results to understand student profiles, learning preferences, contextual factors, and support needs and improve student learning experiences through identification and early intervention for learning gaps, personalized learning, and strategies for student success (Henderson & Corry, 2021). Meanwhile, our teachers need to learn about data privacy and ethical issues. Research on such preparation for building data literacy for understanding and safely using student data in teacher education programs is greatly needed.
- Generative and predictive AI for teaching and learning
Simple AI tools have been used widely in education while generative and predictive AI tools become more and more sophisticated and readily available. These tools bring both opportunities for productivity and learning outcomes and concerns about academic integrity, accuracy, fairness, and equity. Our preservice and in-service teachers should be prepared to integrate AI tools into teaching and learning. At the same time, they should be aware of the issues and have troubleshooting and reflection experiences (Verma et al., 2023). Teacher educators also need professional development on AI tools (Nyaaba & Zhai, 2024). Articles investigating how generative and predictive AI tools are integrated into teacher education and professional development and the impact of AI on equity and inclusion in teacher education are greatly needed to help the field effectively prepare teachers.
- Personalized learning, AI-enabled personalized learning
To meet the learning needs of individual students, personalized learning has been adopted in K-12 schools with the support and advancement of innovative technologies. The enhanced adaptive capability of these tools helps teachers design tailored, individualized learning experiences and assessment strategies. AI tools (simple, generative, and predictive) further support this type of instruction. Teacher preparation programs should help our preservice and in-service teachers learn about this instructional innovation and implement it into their teaching and learning experiences (Jones & Mclean, 2018). Research on personalized learning in teacher education programs and the preparation and professional learning for our teachers are greatly needed to further this conversation.
- XR application in teacher education
Extended reality (XR) technologies have been used in teacher education in a variety of ways. For example, Ferdig et al. (2023) advocated more usage of XR for teacher education field experiences. Similarly, XR has been integrated into different content areas to teach content in a new way. As a field, we need to publish more on XR research and practices, especially how to prepare our preservice and in-service teachers to integrate XR into their curricula. We also need more research on the outcomes of using XR in teaching and learning. Interdisciplinary manuscripts highlighting the collaboration between STEM scientists, educational technologists, teacher educators, and generalists, are particularly welcomed.
- Computer science education in teacher education (computational thinking, cybersecurity, etc.)
Building computer science (CS) teacher capacity becomes a crucial initiative for teacher education programs as more states require K-12 students to study CS as a content area. Students should learn CS concepts as young as possible, which asks teacher education programs to prepare all preservice and in-service teachers to teach CS (Mouza et al., 2021). With innovative CS topics and tools emerging every year, more theoretical and empirical studies are needed to discuss how to prepare teachers for teaching CS topics, such as computational thinking skills, cybersecurity, and AI.
- Technology infusion for educator preparation programs
The U.S. Department of Education Office of Educational Technology published a policy brief named Advancing Educational Technology in Teacher Preparation in 2016. This policy brief recommended that teacher education programs should provide program-deep and program-wide technology integration experiences for their students. A term, technology infusion (Foulger, 2020), emerged. To illustrate what a technology-infused teacher preparation program looks like, CITE-General published a special issue in 2023, elaborating on the four design pillars, (a) technology-integrated curriculum, (b) modeled experiences, (c) practice with reflection, and (d) technology self-efficacy. The practical guidance and recommendations written by the 19 experts offer various future research directions for the field (Graziano et al., 2023). Further research on technology infusion for teacher education programs and studies about the design pillars will contribute to advancing this research path. CITE-General is interested in publishing these conceptual and empirical papers to keep an ongoing conversation on technology infusion for educator preparation programs.
Third, I plan to collaborate with various stakeholders to promote CITE-General internationally. I am looking forward to working closely with the five content-area teacher education associations, AMTE, ASTE, NCTE, CUFA, and ITEEA. I am more than happy to meet with authors to discuss article/special issue ideas at conferences such as SITE, American Educational Research Association, Association for Educational Communications and Technology, and National Technology Leadership Summit, as well as discuss how to better serve the communities. Please reach out to me to discuss ideas or plan for talks for national and international scholars and graduate students.
Last but not least, I plan to promote the journal on social media, such as Facebook and X. Three years ago, I began a new research line on research dissemination with collaborators in our field, especially on the topic of how to disseminate research findings to practitioners and the general public. I strongly encourage dissemination using open-access and social media outlets. CITE Journal is an open-access journal, which is interactive and capable of incorporating video, sound, animated images, and simulations. This unique feature makes CITE Journal an ideal one for promoting dissemination in our field. Thus, I hope to help our authors find ways to disseminate their research findings through social media.
Encourage Authors to Submit Manuscripts
What is a good paper published in CITE-General? High-quality manuscripts published in CITE-General should have a clear problem statement that highlights the potential impacts of the paper in the field of teacher education (Mouza et al., 2021). Such papers should be grounded in an appropriate, sufficient, and up-to-date literature review of relevant themes, discussing theoretical/conceptual frameworks and core concepts undergirding the studies. Data used in the manuscripts should be adequate for the research questions and relevant to technology and teacher education. Although larger samples are welcomed, small, carefully selected samples are also valuable for investigating certain phenomena in specific contexts. For both theoretical and empirical studies, the authors should present key findings that imply meaningful insights into the research topic, future directions, and practices in the field. A well-written discussion section is of utmost importance to showcase the implications for research and practice, advance theory, and develop new insights. For empirical studies, it is crucial to discuss the limitations of the data and research.
Besides publishing traditional theoretical and empirical manuscripts, CITE-General also offers a special opportunity for encouraging ongoing dialogue among scholars. Researchers can submit a short commentary that builds upon and expands on the foundation established through prior articles and commentaries. The editor and reviewers will peer review these commentaries and publish them with the associated articles. This type of publication provides a platform for ongoing scholarly dialogues in a faster turnaround and advances the conversations in our field.
CITE-General is more than a scholarly journal, it is a community of technology and teacher education researchers. We welcome any scholars who share our passion for technology and teacher education and want to share their findings to inform the field. The editorial team will strive to publish important, thought-provoking, and innovative scholarship.
We invite our community members to send us your best, most rigorous research on technology and teacher education. We also cannot thank our new and ongoing reviewers enough for their commitment and contributions to reviewing the submissions. We want to encourage our reviewers to continue to accept our invitations to review promptly, conduct a rigorous review of the manuscripts, and return completed reviews on time. We need our community members to share and discuss the CITE-General articles on social media, especially how these papers intrigue, impress, or puzzle you.
We hope you will cite our publications and assign them to your students. Furthermore, we hope you share your ideas with us on how to improve the journal and review processes. Please write to me at [email protected]. I am eager to hear from you. Again, I want to thank our authors and reviewers for providing valuable contributions and service to the journal and field. The field is advancing because of you.
References
Dunlap, K., & Piro, J. S. (2016). Diving into data: Developing the capacity for data literacy in teacher education. Cogent Education, 3(1), 1132526. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/2331186X.2015.1132526
Ferdig, R. E., Kosko, K. W., & Gandolfi, E. (2022). Using the COVID-19 pandemic to create a vision for XR-based teacher education field experiences. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 30(2), 239–252.
Foulger, T.S. (2020). Design considerations for technology-infused teacher preparation programs. In A.C. Borthwick, T.S. Foulger, & K.J. Graziano (Eds.), Championing technology infusion in teacher preparation: A framework for supporting future educators (pp. 3–28). International Society for Technology in Education.
Graziano, K. J., Foulger, T. S., & Borthwick, A. C. (2023). Design pillars for technology-infused teacher preparation programs. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education Journal, 23(1). https://citejournal.org/volume-23/issue-1-23/general/editorial-design-pillars-for-technology-infused-teacher-preparation-programs
Henderson, J., & Corry, M. (2021). Data literacy training and use for educational professionals. Journal of Research in Innovative Teaching & Learning, 14(2), 232–244.
Jones, M., & McLean, K. (2018). Personalising learning in teacher education. Springer.
Mouza, C., Driskell, S., Wheeler, A., Burrows, & Milman, N. B. (2021). From submission to publication: Guidance from CITE journal editors. In R. Hartshorne, R. Ferdig, & G. Bull, (Eds.), What editors wish authors knew about academic publishing (pp. 17–28). AACE. https://www.learntechlib.org/p/219093/
Mouza, C., Yadav, A., & Ottenbreit-Leftwich, A. (Eds.). (2021). Preparing pre-service teachers to teach computer science: Models, practices, and policies. IAP.
Nyaaba, M., & Zhai, X. (2024). Generative AI professional development needs for teacher educators. Journal of AI, 8(1), 1–13.
U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Technology. (2016). Advancing educational technology in teacher preparation: Policy brief. https://tech.ed.gov/teacherprep/
Verma, G., Campbell, T., Melville, W., & Park, B. Y. (2023). Navigating opportunities and challenges of artificial intelligence: ChatGPT and generative models in science teacher education. Journal of Science Teacher Education, 34(8), 793–798.
