TESOL 2026 Keynote: Enilda Romero-Hall, Ph.D.

Keynote Slides:

References (In Order of Appearance):

Bissell, L., Lamb, J., & Overend, D. (Eds.) (2025). Postdigital Learning Journeys (edited collection). Springer.

Networked Learning Editorial Collective. (2020). Networked Learning: Inviting Redefinition. Postdigital Science and Education, 3(2), 312–325. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-020-00167-8

Aslan, E., & Sirojitdinovna, M. B. (2025). Language learning made short and sweet? Exploring student perceptions of microcelebrity teacher reels on Instagram. Linguistics and Education, 88, 101430. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.linged.2025.101430

Gomes, R. C., Junior. (2020). Instanarratives: Stories of foreign language learning on Instagram. System, 94, 102330. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2020.102330

Carpenter, J. P., Mosquera-Gende, I., & Marcelo-Martínez, P. (2025). Multiplatform ecosystems of professional learning: The case of the #CharlasEducativas. Journal of New Approaches in Educational Research, 14(1). https://doi.org/10.1007/s44322-024-00024-7

Lee, Y. (2025). Social media and language learning. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003543541

“According to estimates, the number of people who take an online course will rise to as many as 57 million people by 2027”: https://www.devlinpeck.com/content/online-learning-statistics

“Today we have a range of online modalities”: https://cetl.uconn.edu/resources/design-your-course/teaching-modality-tips/

Howard, J. T., Romero-Hall, E., Daniel, C., Bond, N., & Newman, L. (Eds.). (2025). Feminist pedagogy for teaching online. Athabasca University Press. https://doi.org/10.15215/aupress/9781771994286.01

Köseoğlu, S., Veletsianos, G., & Rowell, C. (Eds.). (2023). Critical digital pedagogy in higher education. Athabasca University Press. https://doi.org/10.15215/aupress/9781778290015.01

Jiménez Cortés, R. (Ed.). (2025). Investigación e innovación en tecnologías digitales, educación y género. Dykinson. ISBN 9791370061357: https://www.dykinson.com//libros/investigacion-e-innovacion-en-tecnologias-digitales-educacion-y-genero/9791370061357/

Czerniewicz, L., & Cronin, C. (Eds.). (2023). Higher education for good: Teaching and learning futures. Open Book Publishers. https://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0363

Temple Jones, C., Shanouda, F., & Binhammer, L. (Eds.). (2024). Troubles Online: Ableism and access in higher education. Athabasca University Press. https://www.aupress.ca/books/120330-troubles-online/

Reese, R. M., & Lomellini, A. (2025). Advancing Accessibility : Practical Strategies for Instructional Designers and Educators. EdTech Books. https://doi.org/10.59668/2204

Thrasher, T., Chun, D., Kaplan-Rakowski, R., Sadler, R., Ovsiannikova, U., Meyr, J., Ye, Y., & Yuan, Y. (2025). Implementing Large-Scale Virtual Reality in K-12 Education: A Report on Lessons Learned from Practice. TechTrends. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-025-01159-w

Taheri, R., Nazemi, N., Pennington, S. E., Clark, J. A., & Dadgostari, F. (2025). Factors influencing educators’ AI adoption: A grounded meta-analysis review. Computers and Education Artificial Intelligence, 9, 100464. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.caeai.2025.100464

Generative AI Inclusion Threshold Framework: https://thegaiitframework.org

Students and AI Use: https://www.irishtimes.com/life-style/people/2025/09/20/students-complicated-relationship-with-ai-chatbots-its-inherently-going-against-what-college-is/

AI and Critical Thinking: https://docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/1tHdHJOWMYU3D9Ad1NL4OXmUXomlrQ3OG3PDZMF6R8Eo/mobilebasic

Costa, C., & Murphy, M. (2025). Generative artificial intelligence in education: (what) are we thinking? Learning Media and Technology, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2025.2518258

Indiana University: A Visionary Framework for Human-Centered Innovation in Teaching, Learning, and Research: https://education.indiana.edu/about/offices/dean/_doc/ai-framework-jan-2026-v1a.pdf

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Artificial Intelligence Literacy Framework: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/eta/advisories/ten-07-25

About 2.5 billion people lack internet access: How connectivity can unlock their potential: https://www.weforum.org/stories/2024/09/2-5-billion-people-lack-internet-access-how-connectivity-can-unlock-their-potential/

Global Perspectives on Educational Innovations for Emergency Situations: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-99634-5

Castellanos-Reyes, D., Romero-Hall, E., Vasconcelos, L., & García, B. (2022). Mobile Learning for Emergency Situations: Four Design Cases from Latin America. In Global Perspectives on Educational Innovations for Emergency Situations (pp. 89–98). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99634-5_9

Zubair, U., Khan, M. K., & Albashari, M. (2023). Link between excessive social media use and psychiatric disorders. Annals of Medicine and Surgery, 85(4), 875–878. https://doi.org/10.1097/ms9.0000000000000112

Social media ban in Australia: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyp9d3ddqyo

I research the harm that can come to teenagers on social media. I don’t support a ban: https://theconversation.com/i-research-the-harm-that-can-come-to-teenagers-on-social-media-i-dont-support-a-ban-273835

Teachers are using software to see if students used AI. What happens when it’s wrong? https://www.npr.org/2025/12/16/nx-s1-5492397/ai-schools-teachers-students

Combined revenue exceeds 1.5 trillion U.S. dollars in 2024: https://www.statista.com/topics/4213/google-apple-facebook-amazon-and-microsoft-gafam/?srsltid=AfmBOorDkqf200qaI3rCyEJjltw7LUmTSm_Kk0W71kVxAlORXf9LhoWG#topicOverview

Facer, K. (2021). Futures in education: towards an ethical practice. Paris: UNESCO. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000375792.

Hancock, T., & Bezold, C. (1994). Possible futures, preferable futures. The Healthcare Forum Journal, 37(2), 23–29. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/13166132_Possible_futures_preferable_futures

Ross, J. (2022). Digital Futures for Learning: Speculative Methods and Pedagogies (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003202134

Houlden, S., & Veletsianos, G. (2023). Impossible dreaming: On speculative education fiction and hopeful learning futures. Postdigital Science and Education, 5(3), 605–622. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-022-00348-7

Jandrić, P., & Hayes, S. (2020). Postdigital we-learn. Studies in Philosophy of Education, 39(3), 285-297. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-020-09711-2

Bozkurt, A., Xiao, J., Lambert, S., Pazurek, A., Crompton, H., Koseoglu, S., Farrow, R., Bond, M., Nerantzi, C., Honeychurch, S., Bali, M., Dron, J., Mir, K., Stewart, B., Costello, E., Mason, J., Stracke, C. M., Romero-Hall, E., Koutropoulos, A., Toquero, C. M., Singh, L., Tlili, A., Lee, K., Nichols, M., Ossiannilsson, E., Brown, M., Irvine, V., Raffaghelli, J. E., Santos-Hermosa, G., Farrell, O., Adam, T., Thong, Y. L., Sani-Bozkurt, S., Sharma, R. C., Hrastinski, S., & Jandrić, P. (2023). Speculative futures on ChatGPT and generative artificial intelligence (AI): A collective reflection from the educational landscape. Asian Journal of Distance Education, 18(1), 53 – 130. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7636568

Costello, E., Welsh, S., Girme, P., Concannon, F., Farrelly, T., & Thompson, C. (2022). Who cares about learning design? Near future superheroes and villains of an educational ethics of care. Learning, Media and Technology, 48(3), 460–475. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2022.2074452.

Romero-Hall, E. J., Correia, A., Branch, R., Cevik, Y., Dickson-Deane, C., Chen, B., Liu, C., Tang, H., Vasconcelos, L., Pallit, N., & Thankachan, B. (2021). Futurama: Learning design and technology research methods. In E. J. Romero-Hall (Ed.), Research Methods in Learning Design and Technology. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429260919.

Williamson, B., Macgilchrist, F., & Potter, J. (2024). Near future academic publishing – a speculative social science fiction experiment. Learning, Media and Technology, 49(4), 523–526. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2024.2436835.

Romero-Hall, E. J., Awaida, N., Bali, M., Bozkurt, A., Raub, C., Shelton, C., & Walji, S. (2025).Online feminist pedagogy: Future learning experiences speculated. In J. Howard, E. J. Romero-Hall, C. Daniel, N. Bond, & L. Newman (Eds.), Feminist Pedagogy for Teaching Online. Alberta, CA: Athabasca University Press. https://doi.org/10.15215/aupress/9781771994286.01.

Rahm, L. (2024). ‘Help!? My students created an evil AI’: on the irony of speculative methods and design fiction. Learning, Media and Technology. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2024.2367707.

Priyadharshini, E. (2023). Speculative method-making for feminist futures: Insights from Black feminist science and Afrofuturist work. Australian Feminist Studies, 38(115-116), 14-31. https://doi.org/10.1080/08164649.2024.2335631.

English, D. (2024). Afrofuturism. Oxford Bibliographies, 24 October. https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-9780190221911/obo-9780190221911-0004.xml. Accessed 20 April 2025.

Jackson, S., & Freeman, J.S. (2011). The Black Imagination, Science Fiction and the Speculative. New York, NY: Routledge.

Lavender, I. (2019). Afrofuturism Rising: The Literary Prehistory of a Movement. Columbus, OH: The Ohio State University Press.

Womack, Y. L. (2013). Afrofutursim: The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantansy Culture. Chicago, IL: Chicago Review Press.

Brooks, L. A., & Anderson, R. (2025). How Afrofuturism can help us imagine futures worth living in. The Guardian, 3 April. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/ng-interactive/2025/apr/03/afrofuturism-imagine-futures. Accessed 20 March 2025.

Macgilchrist, F., & Costello, E. (2023). Imagination and justice: Teaching the future(s) of higher education through Africanfuturist speculative fiction. In L. Czerniewicz & C. Cronin (Eds.), Higher education for good: Teaching and learning futures (pp. 445–472). Open Book Publishers. https://doi.org/10.11647/obp.0363.19

Romero-Hall, E., Lunga, M., Luna-Thomas, M., Melese, F., Morris, A.A., & Young, P.A. (2026). Envisioning Futures: Afrofuturist Feminist Perspectives in Postdigital Learning Design. Postdigital Science and Education. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s42438-025-00615-3

Schalk, S. (2018). Bodyminds Reimagined: (Dis)ability, Race, and Gender in Black Women’s Speculative Fiction. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Morris, S. M. (2016). More than human: Black feminisms of the future in Jewelle Gomez’s The Gilda Stories. The Black Scholar, 46(2), 33–45. https://doi.org/10.1080/00064246.2016.1147991.

Looking forward to #TESOL26

A few months ago I got a message from a former student, she is part of the TESOL leadership team and she had nominated me as the keynote speaker for their upcoming international convention. I was truly honored by the invitation!

This will be my first time at the TESOL International Convention but I am excited to engage with the members of this community. There is a tremendous amount of educational technology use by TESOL educators and professionals. Many of my educational technology colleagues were TESOL instructors prior to their transition into edtech and learning design.

The conference page and link to the conference are included here: https://www.tesol.org/in-person/

In the video included below, I give a short preview of my upcoming keynote address:

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SIG Instructional Technology Spring 2025 Newsletter!

We are very excited to share the latest edition of our newsletter with you! This edition covers:

SIG Instructional Technology Updates
- Message from the SIG Chair
- 2025 SIG IT Awards
- 2025 SIG IT Travel Scholarships
- AERA 2025 Annual Meeting Program News
- Community Building
Our Members: Awards, Grants, and Professional Accomplishments
What are Our SIG IT Members Reading?
SIG Instructional Technology Members Spotlights!

Read the newsletter here: tiny.utk.edu/SIGIT_Spring2025_Newsletter

SIGIT_Spring 2025_Newsletter Download

Thank you for being part of our community!

OLC Innovate 2025 Keynote

Read Abstract and Speaker Bio

These are references that I used to inform my OLC Innovate 2025 keynote presentation:

Networked Learning Editorial Collective (NLEC). Networked Learning: Inviting Redefinition. Postdigital Science and Education 3, 312–325 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-020-00167-8
Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Luo, T., Freeman, C., & Stefaniak, J. (2020). “Like, comment, and share” —Professional development through social media in higher education: A systematic review. Education Technology Research and Development, 68, 1659-1683. http://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-020-09790-5
Veletsianos, G and Kimmons, K. 2012. Networked participatory scholarship: Emergent techno-cultural pressures toward open and digital scholarship in online networks. Computers & Education, 28: 766–774. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2011.10.001
Romero-Hall, E. (2017). Posting, Sharing, Networking, and Connecting: Use of Social Media Content by Graduate Students. TechTrends, 61 (6), pp. 580-588.
Romero-Hall, E., Gomez-Vasquez, L., Forstman, L., Ripine, C. & Dias da Silva, C. (2023). The Complexities of Using Digital Social Networks in Teaching and Learning. The Open/Technology in Education, Society, and Scholarship Association Journal, 3(1), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.18357/otessaj.2023.3.1.48
Lupton, D. (2014). ‘Feeling better connected’: Academics’ use of social media. Retrieved from https://www.canberra.edu.au/aboutuc/faculties/arts-design/attachments2/pdf/n-andmrc/Feeling-Better-Connected-report-final.pdf
Rodriguez, J. (2011). Social media use in higher education: Key areas to consider for educators. Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 7(4), 539-550.
Marwick, A. E., & boyd, danah. (2010). I tweet honestly, I tweet passionately: Twitter users, context collapse, and the imagined audience. New Media & Society, 13(1), 114-133. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444810365313 (Original work published 2011)
Are Students Experiencing Harassment on your College or University’s Digital Learning Platforms?
Leeder, C. (2019). How college students evaluate and share “fake news” stories. Library and Information Science Research, 41(3). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lisr.2019.100967
Bastick, Z. (2021). Would you notice if fake news changed your behavior? An experiment on the unconscious effects of disinformation. Computers in Human Behavior, 116. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2020.106633
Hodson, J., Gosse, C., Veletsianos, G., & Houlden, S. (2018). I get by with a little help from my friends: The ecological model and support for women scholars experiencing online harassment. First Monday, 23(8). https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v23i8.9136
Castellanos-Reyes, D., Romero-Hall, E., Vasconcelos, L., & Garcia, B. (2022). Mobile learning for emergency situations: Four design cases from Latin America. In Dennen et al. (Eds), Global Perspectives on Educational Innovations for Emergency Situations. Springer, Cham.
Asino, T. I., Gurjar, N., & Boer, P. (2021). Bridging the Informal and Formal Learning Spaces with WhatsApp. The Journal of Applied Instructional Design: September 2021, 10(3). https://doi.org/10.51869/103/tangpb
“What’sApp” with the Social Message? Networked Learning and Social Media Interactions in Curriculum Design: Exploring Student Perceptions: https://www.mona.uwi.edu/soe/publications/cje/article/520
Bohemia, E., & Ghassan, A. (2012). Globally Networked Collaborative Learning in Industrial Design. American Journal of Distance Education, 26(2), 110–125. https://doi.org/10.1080/08923647.2012.663678
Shilova, M. (2017). Datafication concept: Definitions and examples. Retrieved from https://apiumhub.com/tech-blog-barcelona/datafication-examples/
Szcyrek S., Stewart B., & Miklas E. (2024). Educators’ understandings of digital classroom tools and datafication: perceptions from higher education faculty. Research in Learning Technology, 32. https://doi.org/10.25304/rlt.v32.3040
Krutka, D. G., Manca, S., Galvin, S. M., Greenhow, C., Koehler, M. J., & Askari, E. (2019). Teaching “Against” Social Media: Confronting Problems of Profit in the Curriculum. Teachers College Record, 121(14), 1-42. https://doi.org/10.1177/016146811912101410
How have social media algorithms changed the way we interact? https://bbc.com/news/articles/cp8e4p4z97eo
UTK Collaborative Online International Learning: https://cge.utk.edu/coil/
The Global OER Graduate Network: https://go-gn.net/
CWU Library: Misinformation & Fake News Case Studies: https://libguides.lib.cwu.edu/c.php?g=625394&p=4391900#s-lg-box-30321291
Learning about Algorithm – Definition, Types, Characteristics, Applications, and more: https://www.analytixlabs.co.in/blog/what-is-an-algorithm/
Traxler, J. (2018). Learning with mobiles: The Global South. Research in Comparative and International Education, 13(1), 152-175. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745499918761509
Drexler, W. (2010). The networked student model for construction of personal learning environments: Balancing teacher control and student autonomy. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 26(3). https://doi.org/10.14742/ajet.1081

Huge thanks to the Online Learning Consortium (OLC) for the invitation!

AERA SIG IT Graduate Student Travel Scholarship Recipients (2025)

The SIG Instructional Technology (IT) will once again offer Travel Scholarships to the top 10 proposals where a graduate student is the first author. The SIG Instructional Technology Graduate Student Travel Scholarship aims to alleviate the cost of attending the AERA 2025 Annual Meeting. More importantly, it serves as an honor for us to recognize these emerging scholars.

The following graduate students were (1) selected as recipients, (2) accepted the scholarship, and (3) submitted the required information:

Congratulations to all the SIG Instructional Technology Graduate Student Travel Scholarship recipients!

To learn more about the AERA SIG Instructional Technology: https://www.aera.net/SIG052/Instructional-Technology-SIG-Welcome

SIG Instructional Technology Fall 2024 Newsletter!

We are very excited to share the latest edition of our newsletter with you! This edition covers:

SIG Instructional Technology Updates
- Greetings!
- Awards
- AERA 2025 Annual Meeting
- Community Building
Awards, Grants, and Professional Accomplishments of Our Members
What are Our SIG IT Members Reading?
SIG Instructional Technology Members Spotlights

Read the newsletter here: tiny.utk.edu/SIGIT_Fall2024_Newsletter

SIGIT_Fall2024 SIG_Newsletter Download

Thank you for being part of our community and happy holidays!

Kind regards,

SIG Instructional Technology Board Members

#AECT24 Reflections

This seems like the perfect time to come back to write a blog post again, after recently returning from the 2024 AECT International Convention. I am worried that if I share everything that I want to share, this blog post would be super lengthy. So, I going to do my best to it keep short and sweet!

I first joined AECT in 2009 and that year I attended my first AECT conference. I had ZERO funds to attend the conference but a classmates of mine offered to let me crash in her hotel (at no extra cost) and share her per diem with me (our plan was to live off pizza for a a few days). The organization she worked for was paying for her trip and she wanted to support me. I am never going to forget that. Thank you Dr. Sonya Bland-Williams!

Back to #AECT24.

This year the AECT International Convention was special in many ways. First, the conference was returning to Kansas City. A place that is very special to my heart:

In the spirit of sharing stories, which is the theme of AECT 2024, I thought I would share a short but special story with all of you: Exactly twenty years ago, I embarked in my higher education studies in the United States. I was accepted into an International Business program at Emporia State University in Emporia, KS. I left the safety of home and started my own journey. The first stop on that journey was Kansas City and very specifically this hotel, The Kansas City Marriott Downtown. So, in many ways, getting to do this AECT keynote here, in Kansas City and in this hotel, feels to me like I have come full circle. So, for that I am very thankful!

Also, conferences in Kansas City are wonderful opportunity to meet with my college roommate, Mikelle. There is something about sharing a college dorm with someone else, you either become really close or you may never want to see each other again. Mikelle and I have been friends from the moment we met, 20 years ago! She is such a kind soul! Her and her family were so incredible welcoming of me when I was in college. Mikelle was living in the dorm just for fun, because her family actually lived in our college town. So I was able to spend time with them (her family) regularly!

Another aspect that made this conference so special was that I was attending #AECT24 with my doctoral advisees: Wei Wang, Ashley King, and Yuexin (Jennifer) Duan. We have been working on projects for some time but we were finally able to start sharing some of the findings from our research with the AECT community this year. Wei is a force to be reckoned with! He is making moves as a researcher and a graduate assistant for the Digital Learning team at UTK. This year, Wei and his colleagues from Digital Learning presented “Implementing Generative AI in Practice: Designing Assessments and Learning Activities in Faculty Development Programs“. This work focuses on professional development that Digital Learning has been doing in the UTK campus to engage in conversations with faculty about the use of generative AI in higher education and its implications.

Ashley and Jennifer presented on a “work in progress project”. As a research team, we have been working a on a range of different systematic reviews. The project that Ashley and Jennifer shared related to “small group dynamics in asynchronous online learning”. The presentation primarily focused on the introduction of the topic up until the process of analysis of the journal articles for inclusion in the systematic review. We will continue to move forward with data extraction and the remainder of the process. Also, quick shout to all the members of our team who were not able to attend but have worked with us on this project!

The best way I can describe this experience is that: I am a proud advisor and that I am lucky to work with such an amazing team!

Then there is Dr. Lucy Santos Green! What else do I need to say! Lucy is the mastermind behind this project called “Online Ready”. Long story short, Online Ready is a federally funded project that aims to equips school librarians to deploy effective practices for culturally competent and inclusive K-12 online instruction. Having Lucy at AECT to speak about this project with me, was definitely a highlight! We have been working on this project for the last 3 years virtually and getting to see her and feed off her energy is just so amazing! Here are our slides. Our presentation at AECT 2024 focused on the implementation of Online Ready with school librarian with the goal of receiving feedback during Summer 2023. Online Ready will be available open access for anyone to use and share by next spring! More on this coming soon!

This is getting long! Yikes!

This year, it was such a humbling experience to also be the closing keynote for the conference. When the organizer of AECT 2024, Drs. Tonia Dousay, Tutaleni Asino, and Rebecca Reese reach out early this year, I was so incredibly honored! I know that we have a wide range of colleagues who are doing impactful work, so it meant a lot to be considered for this role. What made it even more special was that a dear friend and colleague was also going to be a keynote speaker, Dr. George Veletsianos. George’s keynote, as expected “delivered”! It already had a major impact on my advisees and their career goals. So, I am very grateful for his message!

Technology, Imagination, and Education Futures: Education systems worldwide face profound economic, demographic, political, environmental, and social challenges. Traditionally, our field has responded by either embracing the latest technological advancements or striving to make instruction more effective, efficient, and engaging. However, these approaches are not enough. They are limiting and insufficient. They constrain our imagination and curtail our ability to create better educational futures for ourselves, our students, and our societies. In this talk, I will explore how speculative methods can offer creative, exploratory, and fruitful ways to examine, produce, and rethink the learning environments we are developing and supporting.

As George’s colleague, Dr. Bruna Damiana Heisfeld mentioned: “great minds think alike.” Because both keynote discussed how we can move forward as a field considering ways in which we can humanize learning design research and practice. Here are the slides from my closing keynote and my abstract:

(Re)Igniting Empowered Actions: Over the last few years, we have seen many political, social, and educational shifts that have impacted how we live, work, and learn. We have also experienced a global pandemic that changed us. In many ways we have spent a great deal of time simply surviving. All of these experiences have shaped who we are as individuals, but also as learning designers, educators, and researchers. Today, as we move forward, it is even more important than ever before that we critically reignite our purpose with empowered actions. This talk reflects on why and how we connect with the world around us in intentional empathetic ways that at the core aim to humanize learning design practice and the use of emerging technologies in education. Let’s tap into the power of our stories to share the narratives that often go untold. For good reason, there is a strong focus on the reimagining of our educational futures. Yet, we need to be cognizant that our actions today already shape those visions of tomorrow. Today, equitable and ethical learning design practices and research are not just a “good idea,” they must be the norm. The reality is that efficient, effective, and engaging in not enough to fully capture the socio-cultural context of the world we live in.

Thank you AECT for such a memorable experience!

Also because I always take a million photos: Here you go! Also, thanks to those who shared photos with me!

#AERA24 Resources

These are a few resources that were shared in some of the sessions I attended during the AERA 2024 Annual Meeting. I want to share in this blog post:

Session: Empowering Emerging Online Learners: No More “Boring” Discussion “Boreds”—The Experiences of Teacher Candidates
- Author: Staci Gilpin
- Google Slides
Session: “Ethical Imperatives and Pedagogical Potentials: AI Integration and Primary Source Analysis in Early Childhood and Elementary Education”
Session: “Politic Born of Necessity”: Latina and Latinx Feminists Remembering Genealogies, Imagining Futures
- Lugones, Maria A. 2003. Peregrinajes/pilgrimages: Theorizing coalitions against multiple oppressions. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield. Google Scholar
Session: “Rupturing the White Gaze: Centering Chicana/Latina Feminista Methodologies and Epistemologies in Qualitative Research” Symposium Resources
- Special Issue: “Chicana/Latina feminista pláticas in educational research on Platicas“
Session: “Critical Feminisms as Pedagogical Spaces for Humanizing Online Teaching and Learning” organized by Staci Gilpin and Mary Rice:
- Google Slides

It was such an amazing honor to listen to Kimberly Crenshaw! Her keynote was everything!

The freedom to learn, is the freedom to live!
Kimberly Crenshaw

XR Symposium at ORETTC (Y-12)

Today I had the opportunity to participate in a panel presentation at the 2nd Annual XR Symposium organized by the Oak Ridge Enhanced Technology and Training Center (ORETTC). The specific panel that I was invited to join was focus on Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion specifically on Inclusive Technologies related to XR research & development.

The panel addressed the following questions:

What are some new advancements you have seen in regards to diversity and inclusion in XR?
What are some obstacles within XR technologies? What are the long-term consequences if we ignore D&I?
What would you say is the most difficult part of implementing D&I especially in a world that persistently changes?
In order to encourage accessible and inclusive practices within our workplace and everyday lives; how can we authentically address these topics?
Can you share some valuable resources that we should all be aware of?

It was a great conversation! I am specially gratefully for my fellow panelist and the insights shared:

Sonya Haskins: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sonya-haskins/
Kortney Wise: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kortney-wise-41558a1b4/
Dr. Shekhar Bhansali: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shekhar-bhansali-761b3215/

Huge thanks to Mary Lin, Ed.D. (Senior Manager, Knowledge Acquisition and Performance Studies ) and Austin Arnwine (Instructional Technology Lead, Knowledge Acquisition and Performance Studies) for the invite to participate in the panel.

Crowd at the symposium and the panelist in front of the big screen

AERA SIG Instructional Technology Newsletter

“Hi everyone,

First and foremost, it has been a pleasure serving as the AERA SIG Instructional Technology Program Chair. Huge thanks to everyone who submitted proposals to our SIG. It was very exciting to see the range of topics covered in the proposals submitted. I was also deeply impressed with the quality of the proposal submitted, which made for a difficult peer review process for our reviewers. Speaking of reviewers! I am profoundly grateful for our 94 reviewers who took on the very meaningful tasks of providing feedback and recommending proposals for our SIG Instructional Technology program. Huge thanks to all that have volunteered as Session Chairs, you are a critical component for a smooth conference session! Gratitude!

I can humbly say that we have an amazing AERA 2024 program for the SIG! Each session was carefully designed to ideally create a cohesive line up of presentations. I look forward to meeting you in Philadelphia and to your presentations! I am excited for all of us to engage in academic discourse, professional development, and informal social conversations. See you soon! Go Vols!
Enilda Romero-Hall, Ph.D., Associate Professor, University of Tennessee Knoxville

These quote is a section of the AERA Special Interest Group Instructional Technology Spring 2024 Newsletter recently shared with our members. Below is a copy of the complete AERA Special Interest Group Instructional Technology Spring 2024 Newsletter compiled, formatted, & organized by the 2023-2024 board members of the SIG Instructional Technology:

24-spring-aera-sig-it-newsletter Download