Colleen Cannon-Ruffo, Phd Email & Phone Number

I am passionate about the potential for technology to transform lives and learning when delivered with integrity. As an experienced educator of 29 years, I have had the privilege of teaching students at all grade levels from early childhood through high school to the adult learner. My current role as an Educational Technologist affords me the opportunity to explore how innovative and emerging technologies can be used to actively engage students in their own learning. From SMARTBoards to clickers, from Tablet PCs to Apple iPads and Chromebooks, from Robotics to MakerSpaces, I've been fortunate to be on the forefront of innovations in educational technology my entire career. Designing this new world around sound research based learning experiences is the key to its success. The current movement towards blended and personalized learning opens a whole new field of study in education. Teachers have the opportunity with this type of access to redefine how they teach and how students learn. Personalization is so much easier when personal learning devices are in students' hands both at home and at school. Interactive reading becomes the norm and opens an entirely new world for struggling and emergent readers. The research opportunities in these fields should help us guide teachers in creating and implementing an instructional experience that our digital natives deserve and demand. The face of education is changing and we now have the tools to make it be the engaging and collaborative experience that learning should be.