ITEL: Collaboration and Innovation in Educational Technology

Quick Take

• The Center for Research and Innovation in Technology-Enhanced Learning (ITEL), housed in the College of Education, offers cross-campus collaborations to researchers focused on the use of technology in learning.
• ITEL is organized around four major themes: Learning and Interactivity Research, Innovative Technology Design, Impact and Policy, and Digital Access and Equity.
• The center aims to have a far-reaching impact in schools and various venues where learning is aided by technology.
• A celebration for ITEL and CREA—the Center for Culturally Responsive Evaluation and Assessment—takes place on October 23, 12:30-3 p.m., at the O'Leary Learning Center in the College of Education. Center leaders will explain their missions and engage with those in attendance. 

The Center for Research and Innovation in Technology-Enhanced Learning (ITEL), approved by the Illinois Board of Higher Education this summer, is officially launching on October 23, though projects are already underway.

The concept for ITEL grew out of the extensive work of faculty and builds upon an earlier research initiative in the College of Education known as TIER-ED (Technology Innovations in Educational Research and Design).  The TIER-ED initiative received a competitive grant in 2018 from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s Investment for Growth Program.

ITEL: An “Interdisciplinary Hub”

“The intent of TIER-ED was very similar to that of ITEL, to cultivate cross-campus partnerships,” says Robb Lindgren. “ITEL will serve as an interdisciplinary hub for research related to the integration of digital technologies in a broad area of educational contexts. This relates to all aspects of technology, from thinking about ways of using new technologies in U.S. classrooms to the ways that mobile devices get used for informal education in the Global South.”

Lindgren, former director of TIER-ED, is serving this academic year as interim director for ITEL. He is also the College’s associate dean for research and professor in the departments of Educational Psychology and Curriculum & Instruction.

“Through ITEL, we'll be exploring everything from understanding the mechanisms of how people learn with interactive technologies to exploring the impact of specific educational technology designs on various contexts,” he says.

“Opportunities to Reinvest in Ourselves”

The TIER-ED initiative gave us a testing ground to determine in part, whether this was something we could make permanent,” says Lindgren. “We were really happy in the College with the outcomes of TIER-ED, which is why we took those fundamental ideas and turned them into our ITEL center proposal.

“And now, by becoming a permanent and campus-recognized center, ITEL affords us the opportunities to reinvest in ourselves, to take the outcomes from our projects and feed them into new projects. We didn't have those opportunities with TIER-ED, so that was one of the motivations for moving into this permanent center structure.”

A Myriad of Collaboration Possibilities

Another carryover from TIER-ED to ITEL is the ongoing collaborations among researchers from across campus.

"The great thing about ITEL will be its ability to capitalize on existing collaborations that have already proven to be quite powerful,” Lindgren notes. Through TIER-ED, our college expanded collaborations with investigators from the Grainger College of Engineering, the School of Information Sciences, the Siebel School of Computing and Data Science, the Gies College of Business, the College of Fine and Applied Arts, and the College of Veterinary Medicine.

"I’m particularly excited about the new opportunities this is going to afford," he continues. "Because of its visibility and because it is recognized as a campus center, we have the potential to reach out to many other colleges and departments, and we have already begun this outreach.”

“We also see great potential for collaborations with other interdisciplinary centers and units, such as the Center for Social & Behavioral Sciences, the Interdisciplinary Health Sciences Institute, the Center for Immersive Computing, and NCSA [the National Center for Supercomputing Applications] and CITL [the Center for Innovation in Teaching & Learning]. These partnerships expand potential for developing seed funding programs, cultivating relationships and collaborating on research in the spirit of ITEL,” Lindgren adds.

ITEL Themes

The Center for Research and Innovation in Technology-Enhanced Learning is organized around four themes:

• Learning and Interactivity Research: How people learn in the context of interactive digital technologies (e.g., exploring the effects of interactivity in digital environments on learning and investigating learning contexts and curricular designs involving digital environments).
• Innovative Technology Design: Developing new tools that push the frontiers of technology (such as building multi-device platforms for individual and group learning, developing tools for thoughtful AI applications, classrooms, and informal learning contexts, etc.).
• Impact and Policy: Working with community and industry partners to improve the policy and practice of digital technology use (e.g., developing research-practice partnerships to enhance teacher professional development in using digital technologies for STEM).
• Digital Access and Equity: Addressing the pressing issues of access to, and equitable design of, digital learning technologies.

“These four themes grew naturally upon examining the extensive research and grant writing in areas of technology by College of Education faculty," says Lisa Monda-Amaya, visiting executive director of Centers & Strategic Initiatives for the College.

“While putting the ITEL proposal together, we thought about the types of research in the College and about the needs related to technology-enhanced learning in various environments. Through ITEL, our College has the opportunity to provide significant leadership across these four themes at the state and national levels, and in preschool through grade 12 classrooms.”

Impact in Schools and Beyond

She also mentions the impact ITEL can have in settings beyond schools, such as museums or other venues where people are engaged in learning through technology.

"I see us making connections beyond Illinois schools,” Monda-Amaya says. “I envision ITEL leading research that connects with industry and draws people in to see the transformative possibilities of impactful new technologies in various settings". Those connections will be increased by the visibility the center will create for the work being done within the four themes.

"The center will serve as an amplifier for the work that's being done across campus," Lindgren says, "because as a center, you have access to communication channels, to connections with industry, and to connections with schools in ways that individuals in the university don't necessarily have.”

Broad Support from Leadership

Education Dean Chrystalla Mouza has been a staunch supporter of the creation of ITEL since it was on the drawing board over a year ago.

"Knowing that the College—like the university—has a reputation for excellent interdisciplinary research and innovation, it only made sense to advance the technology-enhanced learning space within the collaborative context of a Center," says Mouza. "The support of leadership from across campus to create ITEL is exciting, just like the Center's capacity to amplify transformative work that is already underway.”

“What excites me most about ITEL is opening up possibilities for the great design work and research that we’ve been doing, to become visible to campus, to the state and local community, and to the nation,” says Lindgren. “As people learn about what ITEL researchers have done, I believe there will be a free flow of ideas about what we can do in the future together as we work with schools and community leaders and with researchers from all corners of the campus.”

And that flow of ideas will result in an ever greater impact, he adds.

“We’re looking to make an impact not just on people’s academic careers, but on the real lives of citizens of the communities, the state, and the nation,” says Lindgren. “Our success will be measured by how much impact we are having in those communities. And I believe the potential there is very high.”

A joint celebration for the Center for Research and Innovation in Technology-Enhanced Learning (ITEL) and the Center for Culturally Responsive Evaluation and Assessment (CREA) will be held on Thursday, Oct. 23, 12:30-3:00 p.m., at the O’Leary Learning Center within the College of Education. The event is designed to inform the campus community about the centers’ missions and to provide an opportunity to engage with their leaders and researchers.