Contra Costa County Office of Education

Emerging Technology

We are committed to supporting the development of 21st century classrooms, which will have the power to transform the classroom experience for students and teachers alike.

Our services include:

Professional development focusing on technology integration and digital citizenship for educators, administrators, and parent groups
Support on the use and integration of the content from the State Library that is available to every K-12 public school student in the state
District support in connecting educational technology integration with other initiatives such as UDL, wellness initiatives, and academic curriculum rollouts.
Facilitating the Educational Technology Subcommittee, a county-wide collaborative with representatives from districts throughout Contra Costa, focused on improving teaching and learning through the integration of curriculum with educational technology and digital resources

To request professional learning for your school district, please reach out using the contact information on the right side of this page.

California K-12 Online Content Project

California provides free access to online educational resources from Encyclopaedia Britannica, ProQuest, TeachingBooks.net, and Gale for use by any public K-12 school and student in the state. Find out more.

Educational Technology Subcommittee Meeting Highlights

September 28, 2023 Meeting

Meeting Peaks:

Collaboration with Math Subcommittee:

Engaged in joint discussions with the Math Subcommittee on AI Tools and their impacts on learning spaces.
Explored collaborative efforts to establish an education framework for AI within our Local Education Agency (LEA).

Beginning-of-Year Updates:

Participants shared notable updates and successes in the implementation of EdTech initiatives at the start of the academic year.
The Group looked at exemplars and discussed AI guidelines that can be adopted or developed for their respective LEAs.

On the Horizon:

Guest presenters from KQED shared upcoming free PD opportunities, available at https://teach.kqed.org/p/events

November 16, 2023 Meeting

Subcommittee Meeting Peaks:

Sam Dix from Brentwood Union School District presented and led the group in a discussion around Ed Tech challenges.
Guest presenter Sue Thotz from Common Sense Education presented research on AI in education.
The group reviewed legislative updates, specifically AB 873, AB 1023, and AB 1637

On the Horizon:

Representatives from the Contra Costa County Library presented upcoming offerings from the library available to students, teachers, and families in the county:

Magazines are now available through the overDrive/Libby app.
There will be a special screening of The Right To Read, a film about the early reading crisis on Tuesday, November 28, 2023 at 6:00 PM at the Lafayette Library. For details, or to register, click here.

January 18, 2024

Subcommittee Meeting Peaks:

The meeting focused on AI tools and writing prompts:
- The group explored the CREATE framework to develop high-quality prompts for AI tools.
- Members practiced writing highly effective AI prompts
Erin Vallejo from MDUSD also presented on her district's work to protect student data privacy.

On the Horizon:

Almetria Vaba from KQED shared information about upcoming media literacy training opportunities for students.
The Common Sense Summit on America's Kids and Families is coming up on January 28-30, 2024.

March 14, 2024

Meeting Peaks:

Group members explored AI tool classroom integration.
Members shared current EdTech challenges and collaborated to find solutions.
The group explored a recommended process to evaluate AI tools for classroom use for engagement, pedagogy and support and reviewed the Teach AI Toolkit.

On the Horizon:

Guest presenters from KQED shared upcoming free PD opportunities, available at https://teach.kqed.org/p/events

May 14, 2024

Meeting Peaks:

Trends in EdTech-related legislation were reviewed, including social media, media literacy, OpenAI copyright infringement suit, and AB 3216 (Student Cell Phone Use);
Laurie Roberts, from WCCUSD, presented to the group on AI guidance from F3 Law and Riverside COE.
Kelly Hilton presented a case study based on SRVUSD's work with AI.

On the Horizon: