# Douglas K. Hartman

Douglas K. Hartman is an American scholar in the field of education known for his work on AI in education, ICTs in education, digital literacy, teacher education, and global education.
He is Professor of Technology & Human Learning in the College of Education at Michigan State University

## Biography

Hartman was born to school teacher parents and spent his early years in Montana and Hawaii. He attended college in Oregon, where he was a student-athlete, before teaching and coaching middle school in Oregon and California. He later pursued graduate studies in Illinois.
Over the past 36 years, Hartman has been a faculty member at universities in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Michigan. He has co-authored nearly 70 articles, chapters, and technical reports with colleagues. His only edited book, Stories Teachers Tell (co-edited with Richard Donato), was adapted into a reader's theater production and performed off-Broadway in New York City.

## Education

* Ph.D., Language & Literacy, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (1991)
* M.A., Literacy & Language, California State University, Fresno (1986)
* B.S., Social Science, Warner Pacific University (1981)

## Career

* Professor of Technology & Human Learning, College of Education, Michigan State University
** Joint appointment in the Department of Teacher Education and the Educational Psychology & Educational Technology Program]
** Courtesy appointments in MSU's Center for Russian, European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies and Asian Studies Center
* Professor of New Literacies & Digital Technologies, Neag School of Education, University of Connecticut
* Associate Professor of Language & Literacy, School of Education, University of Pittsburgh
* Visiting Professor, Teachers College, Columbia University
* Visiting Professor, School of Education, University of California, Berkeley
* Visiting Professor, Faculty of Education, Gazi University
* Visiting Professor, Faculty of Foreign Languages, Kazakh-American Free University
* Visiting Professor, Center for Pedagogical Excellence, Kazakh National Women's Teacher Training University

## Research and contributions

Hartman's research lies at the intersection of sensemaking, multimodality, technologies, equity, and human learning.
His early work explored how learners use print, images, and other artifacts—often in hypertextual and intertextual ways. It influenced the design of Scholastic's K-5 Literacy Place program and state literacy assessments in Illinois, Maryland, and Michigan.
As digital technologies reshaped education, Hartman's focus shifted to the "new literacies" of online comprehending and composing. His collaborations at the New Literacies Research Lab aim to help how educators teach reading, writing, and learning with digital tools. He also contributed to rethinking national and international literacy assessments—beginning with ePIRLS and extending to PISA and NAEP—by simulating online learning tasks and text navigation.
Over the last decade, Hartman and his colleagues have developed professional development programs that aim to help an increasing number of the world's 100 million teachers use AI, ICTs, and other digital tools. Working in nearly 70 countries, his principal collaborations have been with ministries, universities, and schools in Kazakhstan and Turkey.
Hartman has also become an "accidental historian" of literacy. His doctoral seminars have traveled throughout America's Midwest and New England, examining primary-source artifacts of literacy's past. He has been at work on a biography of Edmund Burke Huey, who conducted North America's first study of reading, and even brought Huey's legacy to life by delivering a keynote in Huey's persona at the 57th Annual Meeting of the Literacy Research Association.

## Honors and awards

* Doctor of Humane Letters – Technology & Equity Innovation (honoris causa), Kazakh-American Free University, Republic of Kazakhstan
* Senior Scholar Research Fellowship, Ministry of Higher Education & Science, Republic of Kazakhstan
* Senior Scholar Research Fellowship, TÜBİTAK, Ministry of Education, Republic of Türkiye
* Institutional Partnership Award, MSU Technology-Literacy Group, Michigan Reading Association
* Albert J. Kingston Distinguished Service Award, Literacy Research Association
* Chancellor’s Diversity Fellow, Diversity Working Group, University of Pittsburgh
* Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow, National Academy of Education, Washington, D.C.
* Outstanding Dissertation of the Year Award, International Reading Association
* Promising Researcher Award, Finalist, National Council of Teachers of English
* Student Research Award, Literacy Research Association
* William Chandler Bagley Merit Scholar, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

## Selected publications

* Improving the intellectual well-being of students using generative AI tools to customize texts for learning, Pedagogical Dialogue, https://pd.cpm.kz/en/
* What 50 years of integrating technology in schools can teach us about integrating AI in STEM, In STEM Education of the 21st Century, https://www.palgrave.com/gp/social-science
* AI and reading comprehension, In Handbook of Research on Reading Comprehension (3rd edition), https://www.routledge.com/
* Theories of digital literacy, In Handbook of Research on Digital Literacies, https://www.e-elgar.com/products/handbooks/
* Can artificial intelligence identify reading fluency and level? A comparison of machine and human performance, Reading & Writing Quarterly, doi:10.1080/10573569.2024.2345593
* Current educational challenges in Kazakhstan and possible ways forward, In The New Kazakhstan, https://www.reinventingbrettonwoods.org/publication/
* Comprehension strategies: Four basic language skills with digital activities [Anlama Stratejileri: Dijital Etkinlikler ile Dört Temel Dil Becerisi], ISBN 978-625-7228-85-5
* Eight tweeters tweeting: The writing processes of second graders' composing with social media, Elementary School Journal, doi:10.1086/715481
* The design of a decade-long school-university professional development collaborative: Implications for the integration of ICTs in school settings [Онжылдық мектеп пен университет арасындағы кәсіби дамудың бірлескен жобасы: мектеп жағдайында АКТ интеграциясының салдары], Pedagogical Dialogue, https://pd.cpm.kz/en/archive/2019/4
* Towards a new literacies perspective on synthesis: Multiple source meaning construction, In Handbook of Research on Multiple Source Use, ISBN 9781138646605
* Professional development to support TPACK technology integration: The initial learning trajectories of 13 fifth- and sixth-grade educators, Journal of Education, doi:10.1177/002205641119100203