We began by asking four very important questions...

• "What can teachers do to improve student learning?"
• "How can technologies help teachers accomplish these things?"
• "What do teachers need to know about technologies in order to use them well in these ways?"
• "How can we identify, recognize, and learn from teachers who are using technologies effectively?"

These four questions are at the heart of the AECT Project. We believe that technologies have a lot to offer students and teachers, and we're working to help teachers and teacher educators determine the most important ways to effectively use technologies. We have developed a project that meets the different needs of preservice teachers and inservice teachers.

To Serve Teacher Educators and Preservice Teachers, we are...

• Forming and guiding "Expert Panels" as they determine what teachers in 37 different teaching roles should know and be able to do with technology
• Developing a model to help preservice teachers grasp the many ways technologies can contribute in their classrooms
• Developing online assessment tools to help preservice teachers and teacher educators understand the skills they need and monitor progress, and
• Developing and maintaining a national database designed to document the accomplishments of preservice teachers and a certification program to recognize the those who demonstrate all of the technology skills recognized by the Expert Panels as "core" for their selected teaching roles.

Plans to Serve Inservice Teachers...

Although our current efforts are devoted to serving teacher educators and preservice teachers, we have been encouraged to develop a similar set of tools for use by school districts with inservice teachers, and we plan to do so beginning in September of 2003.