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1. Informal Technology Education for Women Transitioning from Incarceration

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3425711  

   Seo, Hyunjin; Altschwager, Darcey; Choi, Baek-young; Song, Sejun; Britton, Hannah; Ramaswamy, Megha; Schuster, Bernard; Ault, Marilyn; Ayinala, Kaushik; Zaman, Rafida; et al (May 2021, ACM Transactions on Computing Education)

   As society increasingly relies on digital technologies in many different aspects, those who lack relevant access and skills are lagging increasingly behind. Among the underserved groups disproportionately affected by the digital divide are women who are transitioning from incarceration and seeking to reenter the workforce outside the carceral system (women-in-transition). Women-in-transition rarely have been exposed to sound technology education, as they have generally been isolated from the digital environment while in incarceration. Furthermore, while women have become the fastest-growing segment of the incarcerated population in the United States in recent decades, prison education and reentry programs are still not well adjusted for them. Most programs are mainly designed for the dominant male population. Consequently, women-in-transition face significant post-incarceration challenges in accessing and using relevant digital technologies and thus have added difficulties in entering or reentering the workforce. Against this backdrop, our multi-disciplinary research team has conducted empirical research as part of technology education offered to women-in-transition in the Midwest. In this article, we report results from our interviews with 75 women-in-transition in the Midwest that were conducted to develop a tailored technology education program for the women. More than half of the participants in our study are women of color and face precarious housing and financial situations. Then, we discuss principles that we adopted in developing our education program for the marginalized women and participants’ feedback on the program. Our team launched in-person sessions with women-in-reentry at public libraries in February 2020 and had to move the sessions online in March due to COVID-19. Our research-informed educational program is designed primarily to support the women in enhancing their knowledge and comfort with technology and nurturing computational thinking. Our study shows that low self-efficacy and mental health challenges, as well as lack of resources for technology access and use, are some of the major issues that need to be addressed in supporting technology learning among women-in-transition. This research offers scholarly and practical implications for computing education for women-in-transition and other marginalized populations. 

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2. Development and introduction of a document disclosing AI-use: exploring self-reported student rationales for artificial intelligence use in coursework: a brief research report

   https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2025.1654805  

   Garcia_Ramos, Jennifer (September 2025, Frontiers in Education)

   Polly, Patsie (Ed.)

   This brief research report presents exploratory findings from a study examining student-use of a mandatory artificial intelligence (AI) disclosure form in a general chemistry and citizen science honors course. Students documented every instance of AI use, describing the AI tool utilized, their purpose, the context of the assignment and their perceived outcomes. Originally created as a practical solution, the form aligns retrospectively with established frameworks in AI Literacy, Digital Ethics, Universal Design for Learning (UDL), and Metacognitive Reasoning. Qualitative analysis of responses identified major themes: verification, immediate academic aid, procrastination, and material obstacles. Findings underscore the disclosure form’s potential as a pedagogical tool, fostering transparency, ethical engagement, and self-regulation. The author proposes broader adoption of the form as a replicable strategy for instructors integrating AI in the classroom and advocates for exposing students to literacy in AI, ethics, and intellectual property. 

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3. The information won't just sink in: Helping teachers provide technology‐assisted data literacy instruction in social studies

   https://doi.org/10.1111/bjet.13255  

   Shreiner, Tamara_L; Guzdial, Mark (July 2022, British Journal of Educational Technology)

   Abstract In this study, support for teaching data literacy in social studies is provided through the design of a pedagogical support system informed by participatory design sessions with both pre‐service and in‐service social studies teachers. It provides instruction on teaching and learning data literacy in social studies, examples of standards‐based lesson plans, made‐to‐purpose data visualization tools and minimal manuals that put existing online tools in a social studies context. Based on case studies of eleven practicing teachers, this study provides insight into features of technology resources that social studies teachers find usable and useful for using data visualizations as part of standards‐ and inquiry‐based social studies instruction, teaching critical analysis of data visualizations and helping students create data visualizations with online computing tools. The final result, though, is that few of our participating teachers have yet adopted the provided resources into their own classrooms, which highlights weaknesses of the technology acceptance model for describing teacher adoption. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topicData literacy is an important part of social studies education in the United States.Most teachers do not teach data literacy as a part of social studies.Teachers may adopt technology to help them teach data literacy if they think it is useful and usable.What this paper addsEducational technology can help teachers learn about data literacy in social studies.Social studies teachers want simple tools that fit with their existing curricula, give them new project ideas and help students learn difficult concepts.Making tools useful and usable does not predict adoption; context plays a large role in a social studies teachers' adoption.Implications for practice and/or policyDesigning purpose‐built tools for social studies teachers will encourage them to teach data literacy in their classes.Professional learning opportunities for teachers around data literacy should include opportunities for experimentation with tools.Teachers are not likely to use tools if they are not accompanied by lesson and project ideas. 

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4. Towards an Effective Digital Literacy Intervention to Assist Returning Citizens with Job Search

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3290605.3300315  

   Ogbonnaya-Ogburu, Ihudiya Finda; Toyama, Kentaro; Dillahunt, Tawanna R. (May 2019, Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems)

   null (Ed.)

   Returning citizens (formerly incarcerated individuals) face great challenges finding employment, and these are exacerbated by the need for digital literacy in modern job search. Through 23 semi-structured interviews and a pilot digital literacy course with returning citizens in the Greater Detroit area, we explore tactics and needs with respect to job search and digital technology. Returning citizens exhibit great diversity, but overall, we find our participants to have striking gaps in digital literacy upon release, even as they are quickly introduced to smartphones by friends and family. They tend to have employable skills and ability to use offline social networks to find opportunities, but have little understanding of formal job search processes, online or offline. They mostly mirror mainstream use of mobile technology, but they have various reasons to avoid social media. These and other findings lead to recommendations for digital literacy programs for returning citizens. 

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5. Building a Well-Equipped Skilled Technical Workforce by Adopting the Framework for a Cross-Disciplinary STEM Core

   Anderson, A-C; Whitney, M.; Hecht, D. (April 2023, Journal of advanced technological education)

   Kazarinoff, P. (Ed.)

   STEM technician education programs face a world in which cutting-edge technologies are transforming existing industries and creating new ones at an unprecedented pace. In light of this, the NSF ATE project Preparing Technicians for the Future of Work conducted industry site interviews and regional convenings of academic partners and industry leaders representing a wide range of technical fields to learn how technology impacts technician job tasks and roles. Through these activities, the project identified three skill areas common across multiple technologies and deemed essential for future STEM technicians: data knowledge/analysis, advanced digital literacy, and business knowledge/processes. These “cross-disciplinary STEM core” skill sets and recommendations for integrating them into technical programs are described in A Framework for a Cross-Disciplinary STEM Core. To facilitate adoption of the Framework at a systemic level, the project is sharing an adoption toolkit with concrete steps a college can take, tools it can use with employers to prioritize STEM Core skill sets and faculty activities for identifying where prioritized skills are taught within existing program curriculum and instructional gaps where new cross-disciplinary skill sets could be easily integrated. 

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