Technology Learning Manifesto

I believe every child deserves an early childhood classroom where learning happens through play, strong student-teacher interactions, and hands-on experiences in an engaging environment. My purpose is to ensure that every system, practice, and tool we use as a district strengthens these experiences rather than taking time away from them.

I’m passionate about early childhood education, particularly educating four year old Pre-K students. It’s a unique time when 90% of a child’s brain develops by five years old.  Four year olds don’t do well with lectures and long winded soliliquies. They don’t learn by sit and get, kill and drill, or worse yet, worksheets. Not only will the students learn very little, they will become restless and unruly because they are utterly bored.  Best practice in Pre-K is to have a highly constructivist approach. And the Rosetta Stone of a truly effective Pre-K program is play. However, play also proves to be a stumbling block for those who fail to understand its value. One can only imagine how risky it might be to use the word play in an elementary school where test scores are the focus. Many hear “play” and scoff thinking it’s the antithesis of academics. Yet, the reality is that play is how children learn. Jean Piaget viewed play not as a break from learning but as one of the primary ways children construct knowledge and make sense of their experiences (Piaget, 1962). Learning and play are not in opposition to one another as though once play time is over the real learning begins. Rather “play is the method and learning is the outcome” (Morgan, 2025, p. 61).

To an untrained observer, a highly constructivist fourth-grade classroom can look academically rigorous, while, on the other hand, a highly constructivist Pre-K classroom can look like children are "just playing.” Yet both are based on the same principle: learners do not receive knowledge from teachers. They actively construct understanding through experiences, interactions, reflection, and problem solving. The difference is that four-year-olds construct knowledge with blocks, dramatic play, sand, paint, stories, and conversation because those are the developmentally appropriate tools for their age. Play is not the opposite of rigorous learning in Pre-K, it is the primary vehicle through which rigorous learning occurs.  (Find more examples of play as a constructivist practice in Pre-K here.)

For eleven years I taught Pre-K in one of our district's most economically disadvantaged schools.  The reality is that our school district primarily serves a low socioeconomic population; on top of that, state funded Pre-K is only available for economically disadvantaged students with a few exceptions. Decades of research shows that the best Pre-K programs are characterized by hands-on learning, strong student-teacher interactions, and learning through play (Campbell et al., 2002; Schweinhart et al., 2005). These models were originally proven to work with underprivileged students, but over time the public schools have pushed academics to lower and lower grade levels in an effort to boost achievement (Morgan, 2025, p.101). This effort has crowded out the elements that make early childhood programs so effective in the first place (Lipsey et al., 2018).  Unfortunately, the very thing that underprivileged kids need most in Pre-K tends to be relegated as an impediment to success. The research bears out that this is a significant miscalculation (Lipsey et al., 2018). In the meantime, private schools and daycares that serve the more affluent community boast developmentally appropriate practices such as play-based learning, learning through discovery, and hands-on learning; these are lauded as hallmarks of their programs. Somehow the programs that were originally designed for underprivileged students have become accessible primarily to affluent children because public schools have forfeited one of the best interventions available to them.

Now that I’m the early childhood coordinator who directs the district's Pre-K program I feel compelled to instill a sense of vision and clarity in our Pre-K teachers so that they’re empowered to implement best practices in the classroom. I feel a sense of responsibility to hold the standard, communicate the vision, and pursue the implementation of a high quality Pre-K program.

Furthermore, I think that understanding play as an essential element of early childhood education could be a key to understanding education across all grade levels.  Researchers define play in many different ways, but the one common strand that most researchers say characterizes play is a sense of autonomy.  When playing, children get to choose the activity and even decide the rules.  This is a healthy way for children to experience agency and what it's like to be in control, and its part of the reason why they enjoy play.  Then while reading Drive:  The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, I discovered that there is a strong body of evidence that suggests, “human beings have an innate inner drive to be autonomous...” (Pink, 2011, p.71).  I was taken aback while reading this book because of how much emphasis there was on autonomy, and how well it connected with early childhood research.  This same idea is embedded in the ADL program's framework, COVA.  Choice is a critical component because it taps into a fundamental human need, which, when met, generates pleasure and motivation.  It's difficult for me to separate the idea of autonomy in early childhood play and the importance of it in education in general, and, even, in the adult world of work.  Fred Rogers (1994) argued that play is not a break from learning but the essential work of childhood.  If play is the work of children, then maybe this can give us an insight into work in general.  As children grow and delelop, although play is no longer a developmentally appropriate medium for learning, the question is whether we can figure out how to make the work of learning enjoyable for adolescents?  I believe that the early childhood research on play indicates that the human need for agency is a key to making the work of learning pleasurable.  Even when considering the adult workforce, the people who enjoy their jobs most have a substantial amount of autonomy.  For adults, when work is enjoyable it's possible that it's almost like play is for a child, so why shouldn't this be the case for education, too?

What's Right In Education?

• Differentiated instruction is an emphasis

• Emphasis on the importance of student centered learning

• There are increased offerings of virtual learning and blended learning

• There are lots of great teachers who perceive their job as a calling

What's Wrong with Education?

• Although there is a lot of talk about differentiated instruction and student centered learning, this is mostly only talk.  I believe in most cases the desire for this kind of learning is genuine, but it's mostly incompatible with the current model of education.  It's like trying to run an Android operating system on an iPhone.  The two won't play well together.  Currently education is primarily a factory model of education.  Everyone is on the same page at the same time on the same day.  It's difficult to differentiate instruction when there is no room for it.

• Standardized testing dominates and drives instruction, which reinforces the factory model.

Artificial Intelligence

One of the most prominent issues related to digital learning at all levels, whether global, national, state, or local is AI. There is a lack of regulation at the global and national level. The pace of AI is so rapid that it’s difficult for institutions to keep up. There is a lot of uncertainty regarding academic integrity and data privacy (EDUCAUSE, 2025, p. 20; CoSN, 2024, p. 6). Local school districts and colleges all across the country are struggling to formulate defined AI strategies and policies.  Just recently, I sat in a Blinn Advisory Board meeting for early childhood education and listened to a presentation on how Blinn College is grappling with AI policies.

Cybersecurity

Another major issue is cybersecurity. K-12 schools have become the most targeted sector for ransomware attacks, yet most leaders have not taken it seriously enough (CoSN, 2024, p. 6). Most school districts are struggling to keep up, and have to make sure to train their staff on cybersecurity so that they don’t open the gate to bad actors through poor digital safety practices.

• While I was an early childhood instructional coach I really pushed for the purchase of Seesaw, a digital portfolio.  We have it available for our teachers, which is a huge success in terms of securing funding.  However, I have discovered that having something available does not mean that teachers will use it.  Even with basic training, Seesaw is a tool that sits mostly dormant and unused.  It will take an initiative like my innovation plan that accounts for the need to implement organizational change.

• Currently, I'm a team of one and I manage 54 pre-k classrooms on 14 different locations. Ensuring that every teacher receives 15 hours of coaching and 15 hours of professional learning every year requires lots of innovation and creativity for a team of one. I’ve built two websites for our team, one for resources and the other is our curriculum guide.  

• I've coordinated with the campus principals to ensure that the Pre-K teachers have the same conference period so that we can have district-wide Zoom PLCs.

• I established a partnership with Texas A&M University's Early Childhood Institute so that their professors come and train our teachers for two days in the summer.  We've done this for the past three years.  I also invite local daycares to come so that they can benefit from the training which is also TECPDS certified.

• For the past two years I've managed formal partnerships between our district and local daycares so that qualified students in their center can dually enroll in our district, which allows us to pass funding through to the daycare.  The result is that we help raise the level of education in our community and local daycares benefit financially in an increasingly prohibitive economy.

• This past year our district was awarded a grant through the TAMU system and Texas Workforce Commission that allows us to broker partnerships with daycares outside of our city; we were assigned the eastern region of Texas.  The goal is for us to have a minimum of ten partnerships.  We are brokering the partnerships this summer.  I am managing this initiative.