California Digital Learning Integration and Standards Guidance

Years of substantial investment in technology infrastructure for schools, including equipping students and teachers with internet connectivity and devices, have set the conditions for transformative innovation of learning. When used effectively in online (synchronously or asynchronously), hybrid, or face-to-face environments, digital tools can accelerate sound pedagogical practices and facilitate student growth as life-long, empowered learners. Benefits of strategic technology use to support learning include:

• promoting active student engagement in the learning process;

• nurturing opportunities for ongoing collaboration with peers, educators, families, and a global community of experts;

• building on prior knowledge to deeply reinforce essential skills, such as executive functioning, critical thinking and reasoning, creativity, communication, cross-cultural understanding, and decision-making;

• providing means of authentically connecting students’ learning to the world beyond their physical learning environment; and

• fostering student agency to set personal learning goals and plans and continuously monitor and evaluate their own progress.

In addition to the benefits for students, technology can serve as an important tool for educators to cultivate supportive relationships with students and families, redesign instruction using competency-based learning models, equitably differentiate instruction, support individual learner needs, and build student knowledge of effective digital learning practices through connections with peers, experts, and professional learning networks.